Transaction Costs, Participation, and the Cost-Effectiveness of Reverse Auctions: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment
通过实验室实验研究交易成本如何影响反向拍卖的参与度和投标行为，发现交易成本会降低参与度和成本效益，尤其在预算较低时影响更大，并模拟了补贴降低交易成本的效果。
Abstract Reverse auctions are often recognized as a tool that can cost-effectively allocate agri-environmental program funds to support environmentally-beneficial land management practices. However, transaction costs can limit participation in auctions which limits their cost-effectiveness. We use a laboratory experiment to examine how various levels of transaction costs influence participation and bidding behavior in discriminatory-price reverse auctions in low and high budget scenarios. Our experimental results show that transaction costs limit auction participation, increase bid amounts, and reduce cost-effectiveness. The negative effect of transaction costs on participation is particularly large when the budget level is low. Using the results of our experiment, we design a simulation to investigate whether reducing transaction costs via subsidies could increase program cost-effectiveness under various conditions. We find that transaction cost subsidies increase auction cost-effectiveness; however, our study raises new questions about how these subsidies are designed and the implications for the overall costs and benefits of efforts to reduce transaction costs in reverse auctions.