A Comparison of Auctions and Multilateral Negotiations
通过实验比较了第一价格拍卖与多边谈判两种交易机制，发现卖家数量影响价格和效率：四卖家时两者价格无差异但多边谈判效率略高，两卖家时多边谈判价格更高。
We compare first-price auctions to an exchange process that we term ``multilateral negotiations.'' In multilateral negotiations, a buyer solicits price offers for a homogeneous product from sellers with privately known costs, and then plays the sellers off one another to obtain additional price concessions. Using the experimental method, we find that with four sellers, transaction prices are statistically indistinguishable in the two institutions, but with two sellers, prices are higher in multilateral negotiations than in first-price auctions. The institutions are equally efficient with two sellers, but multilateral negotiations are slightly more efficient with four sellers.