Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

2014

Abstract

Auctions have been studied extensively as an economic marketplace. The economist’s focus is on modeling final sales prices, but the processes that give rise to those outcomes are rarely studied in great detail. This research is intended to provide that complementary perspective. We show how the interactions between bidders in an auction unfold in a dynamic pattern of bids and counter-bids, and thereby over the duration of an auction, create a network structure. The auction network contributes significantly to models of price dynamics and the network predicts final sales prices better than economic (non-network) indicators alone. In addition, network analyses are useful in identifying the key bidders whose actions seem to exert disproportionate influence on other bidders and the final sales prices. Furthermore, the key bidders may be identified very early in an auction process, which has practical implications for the auction house managers and for other bidders.

Keywords

online auctions, dynamic pricing, bidders, networks

Discipline

Marketing

Research Areas

Marketing

Publication

Social Networks

Volume

37

First Page

14

Last Page

28

ISSN

0378-8733

Identifier

10.1016/j.socnet.2013.11.002

Publisher

Elsevier

Included in

Marketing Commons

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