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In this paper, we explore whether seller reputation can help alleviate asymmetric information in Internet online auctions, using Taiwanese data. This study reveals that the influence of seller reputations on prices is statistically significant, indicating little cultural difference in online auction behaviors, especially the attitude towards seller reputation. Although negative scores do not affect auction prices in full sample regressions, the impact of negative scores becomes statistically significant in the separated sample (low‐reputation auctions). Bidders are cautious about sellers who have not built enough reputation.

Abstract
Auction thrill for everybody – no matter if you are the buyer or seller – that´s what has made eBay famous and attractive in its early years. The internet pioneer was already born in the last millennium and has revolutionized the consumer to consumer business. Originally the first supra-regional, electronic flea market, eBay has evolved into one of the world's largest retailing platforms. A lot has happened and the auctions that once constituted the core of the brand are more of a sideshow nowadays. In the following interview, Eben Sermon, Vice President of eBay Germany, explains how the brand has been reinventing itself and talks about eBay's innovations within the highly competitive field of e-commerce.

Over the last twenty years, computer science has relied on concepts borrowed from game theory and economics to reason about applications ranging from internet routing to real-time auctions for online advertising. More recently, ideas have increasingly flowed in the opposite direction, with concepts and techniques from computer science beginning to influence economic theory and practice. In this lecture, I will illustrate this point with a detailed case study of the 2016-2017 Federal Communications Commission incentive auction for repurposing wireless spectrum. Computer science techniques, ranging from algorithms for NP-hard problems to nondeterministic communication complexity, have played a critical role both in the design of the reverse auction (with the government procuring existing licenses from television broadcasters) and in the analysis of the forward auction (when the procured licenses sell to the highest bidder).

ABSTRACTThe Internet is providing an opportunity to revenue management practitioners to exploit the potential of auctions as a new price distribution channel. We develop a stochastic model for a high‐level abstraction of a revenue management system (RMS) that allows us to understand the potential of incorporating auctions in revenue management in the presence of forecast errors associated with key parameters. Our abstraction is for an environment where two market segments book in sequence and revenue management approaches consider auctions in none, one, or both segments. Key insights from our robust results are (i) limited auctions are best employed closest to the final sale date, (ii) counterbalancing forecast errors associated with overall traffic intensity and the proportion of customer arrivals in a segment is more important if an auction is adopted in that segment, and (iii) it is critically important not to err on the side of overestimating market willingness to pay.

Auctions have become a major phenomenon of electronic commerce. Governments use auctions to sell spectrum licenses, millions of users trade goods in Internet auctions, and task assignment in multiagent systems as well as procurement in the "real world" is handled via auctions. The contribution of this dissertation is two-fold. The first part addresses strategic bidding whereas the second part deals with privacy issues. There are auction mechanisms that have been proven to lead to allocations of goods that maximize utility among participants (bidders and sellers) and to remove counter-speculation in the bid-preparation process. However, the theoretical model makes several restrictive assumptions to achieve those properties. For example, agreements between bidders ("bidder collusion") or untruthful auctioneers are not considered. This thesis extends this list by adding the notion of "antisocial" agents, i.e., agents that intend to maximize their own utility while minimizing their competitors' utilities. We present optimal antisocial bidding strategies and show that it is impossible to construct an auction mechanism that provides the properties mentioned above in the presence of at least one antisocial agent. In the second part of this thesis, the privacy of sealed-bid auctions is investigated. Traditionally, privacy is obtained by consulting a trusted third-party, the auctioneer. However, the correctness of the outcome and the privacy of bids completely depend on the trustworthiness of the auctioneer. The major contribution of this dissertation is the incremental development of distributed protocols that emulate auction mechanisms without relying on any trusted party. This is achieved by applying recently developed cryptographic techniques of secure multiparty computation and distributing the determination of the auction outcome on bidders. The proposed protocols are secure despite any collusion of bidders. Some of them even provide partial privacy against computationally unbounded adversaries. ; Auktionen spielen eine wesentliche Rolle im elektronischen Handel. Regierungen versteigern Lizenzen für Funkfrequenzen (wie kürzlich die UMTS-Mobilfunklizenzen), Millionen Bieter nehmen an Internet-Versteigerungen teil und Aufgabenverteilung in Multiagentensystemen sowie Beschaffung von Waren oder Dienstleistungen für Unternehmen erfolgen häufig durch Auktionen. Diese Arbeit gliedert sich in zwei Teile. Während sich der erste Teil mit strategischem Bietverhalten beschäftigt, werden im zweiten Teil Aspekte der Sicherheit und des Datenschutzes in Auktionen behandelt. Es gibt Auktionsmechanismen, die bewiesenermaßen zu einer Güterverteilung führen, die den Nutzen aller beteiligten Personen (Käufer und Verkäufer) maximiert, und die strategisches Bieten überflüssig machen. Um diese Eigenschaften zu garantieren, werden jedoch einschränkende Annahmen im zu Grunde liegenden theoretischen Modell gemacht. So werden beispielsweise Absprachen zwischen Bietern (sog. Kollusionen) oder betrügerische Auktionatoren nicht betrachtet. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird diese Liste um sog. "antisoziale" Agenten ergänzt. Das Ziel dieser Agenten ist, neben der Maximierung ihres eigenen Nutzens, den Nutzen ihrer Konkurrenten zu minimieren. Es werden optimale Bietstrategien für antisoziale Agenten präsentiert und die Unmöglichkeit der Konstruktion eines Auktionsmechanismus gezeigt, der oben genannte Grundeigenschaften in Gegenwart von mindestens einem antisozialen Agenten aufweisen kann. Im zweiten Teil dieser Arbeit wird der Schutz von verdeckten Geboten (beispielsweise bei Ausschreibungen) untersucht. Üblicherweise wird die Vertraulichkeit von verdeckten Geboten durch die Zuhilfenahme eines Dritten, dem Auktionator, sicher gestellt. Die Richtigkeit des Auktionsergebnisses und der tatsächliche Schutz der Gebote hängen allerdings vollkommen von der Vertrauenswürdigkeit dieser Instanz ab. Der Hauptbeitrag dieser Dissertation ist die schrittweise Entwicklung von verteilten Protokollen, die Auktionsmechanismen nachbilden ohne sich auf vertrauenswürdige Instanzen zu stützen. Dies wird unter anderem mit kürzlich entwickelten, kryptographischen Verfahren wie "multiparty computation" und der Grundidee, die Bestimmung des Auktionsergebnisses auf die Bieter zu verteilen, erreicht. Die vorgestellten Protokolle sind sicher, unabhängig davon wie viele Bieter ihr Wissen teilen. In einigen können die Gebote selbst mit unbeschränktem Rechenaufwand nicht aufgedeckt werden.

Fueled by the widespread use of the internet, more and more ordinary people have now become merchandise sellers who sell their own possessions, such as antique collections and limited souvenirs, to buyers who are interested in such goods via online auctions. This study examines the decision making related to the bidding strategies used in online auctions by both sellers and buyers. When selling goods for which there is a limited supply, sellers consider whether to sell the single homogenous items in multiple, simultaneous auctions or all the items in a single auction. Moreover, when selling heterogeneous but associated goods, sellers may decide to bundle the items for sale or not with an aim of increasing the potential buyers' willingness to make a purchase. We investigate the effects that various factors related to the bidding strategies used in online auctions, such as the base price and duration of the auction determined by the seller and the bidding price decided by the buyer, have on the seller's profit, and the utilities of both parties are considered to derive the equilibrium solutions. This study contributes to the literature by proposing an online auction framework that focuses more on individual sellers selling a limited quantity of items with an aim to establish a favorable online auction for both sellers and buyers and earn more profits for sellers. The results show that the base prices and direct purchase prices should be unestablished to achieve the most attractive characteristics of online auctions, which would encourage more buyers to freely place bids. As a result, the bidding items would have more chances to be eventually obtained by the buyer who places the highest bid, which, thus, maximizes the seller's profit.

What are the major issues confronting social policy-makers today? What theoretical perspectives shape our thinking about the causes of social problems and how we should respond? What can we do to influence decision makers about which policy choice to make? In this completely revised and updated edition of Canadian Social Policy, a new generation of social policy analysts discusses these important questions. Readers who are interested in discovering the current policy debates, and who want to understand the policy-making process at various levels of government as well as how they can

Traces the founding of Alibaba, the world's second largest Internet company, by an English teacher from humble origins, drawing on exclusive interviews to explore how the company and Jack Ma have become icons and leading employers in China's booming private sector

10. The Product-Mix Auction: A New Auction Design for Differentiated Goods11. Optimal Incentives in Core-Selecting Auctions; 12. Auctioning Rough Diamonds: A Competitive Sales Process for BHP Billitoris Ekati Diamonds; SECTION II. C: E-COMMERCE; 13. Ending Rules in Internet Auctions: Design and Behavior; 14. Designing Markets for Mixed Use of Humans and Automated Agents; 15. The Design of Online Advertising Markets; 16. Very-Large-Scale Generalized Combinatorial Multi-Attribute Auctions: Lessons from Conducting 60 Billion of Sourcing.

Real estate auctions have become a popular sales mechanism in Sweden in the past couple of decades when the internet facilitated the marketing of properties for sale. With the possibility to display several exterior and interior pictures of the property rather than the single façade picture style of traditional newspapers advertisements, and a more detailed description of the object, brokers significantly increased the number of potential buyers at the showings of properties for sale. The increase in the number of visitors has, especially in the larger cities in Sweden, increased the frequency of bidding wars, in which the winning bid ends far above the list price. Many auction participants, especially those who are inexperienced, perceive the auction-based sales mechanism as very stressful considering that the purchase of a home is for most buyers the largest investment they will ever make. Therefore, the auction mechanism for selling homes is regularly debated in media, among politicians and by regulatory bodies. The scientific literature analyzing auctions of non-distressed homes is, however, very limited. Hence, the debate and analysis of the Swedish auction-based sales mechanism has little empirical evidence to lean on. A main reason for the lack of scientific work in this area is the difficulty to obtain sufficiently detailed auction data to study how sellers' list price strategy and auction participants bidding strategies affect the outcome of real estate auction auctions and the occurrence of a winner's curse. The overall aim of this thesis is to study how sellers' list price strategy and bidding strategies of auction participants affect the outcome of auctions of non-distressed residential homes. The thesis is empirical and comprises four papers that analyze the housing markets in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Papers 1 and 2 analyze sales of condominium apartments in Central Stockholm, while Paper 3 analyzes sales of single-family homes in Stockholm County. Paper 4 analyzes sales of condominium apartments ...

Temporary Canadian immigration has grown beyond traditional programs for students, caregivers and agricultural workers to include trade-related temporary visas under NAFTA and the GATS. Several questions emerge under these temporary schemes including who should choose the number of temporary immigrants and under what employment conditions. This paper offers an alternative policy to the current government-determined quota on temporary visas to answer these two questions. Under the proposed scheme, offered in this paper a potentially-displaced Canadian worker places a job voucher up for auction on the Internet. If the Canadian worker finds an acceptable offer for his one-year (or less) voucher, then the temporary immigrant is admitted. Thus, under this auction scheme Canadian workers are compensated for the presence of temporary immigrants, and the actual number of temporary immigrants admitted depends on the total number of Canadian workers who sell their vouchers, not on a government fiat.

ABSTRACTTemporary Canadian immigration has grown beyond traditional programs for students, caregivers and agricultural workers to include trade‐related temporary visas under NAFTA and the GATS. Current Canadian debates envision supplanting Canada's permanent immigration programme with a temporary visa programme to remove skill shortages. Several questions emerge under these temporary schemes including who should choose the number of temporary immigrants and under what employment conditions. This paper offers an alternative policy to the current government‐determined quota on temporary visas to answer these two questions. Under the proposed scheme offered in this paper, a Canadian worker can place a job voucher up for auction on the Internet. If the Canadian worker finds an acceptable offer for his one‐year (or less) voucher, then the temporary immigrant is permitted to seek a job in Canada. Thus, under this auction scheme Canadian workers are compensated for the presence of temporary immigrants, and the actual number of temporary immigrants admitted depends on the total number of Canadian workers who sell their vouchers, not on a government fat.