Selling money on eBay: A field study of surplus division

Arbeitspapier

We study the division of trade surplus in a competitive market environment by conducting a natural field experiment on German eBay. Acting as a seller, we offer Amazon gift cards with face values of up to 500 Euro. Randomly arriving buyers, the subjects of our experiment, make price offers according to eBay rules. Using a novel decomposition method, we infer offered shares of trade surplus and find that the average share proposed to the seller amounts to 29%. Additionally, we document: (i) insignificant effects of stake size; (ii) poor use of strategically relevant public information; and (iii) behavioural differences between East and West German subjects.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods ; No. 2016/20

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Noncooperative Games ; Field Experiments ; Econometrics of Games and Auctions
• Subject: Field experiment ; ultimatum game ; surplus division ; bargaining ; Internet trade ; eBay

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gizatulina, Alia ; Gorelkina, Olga
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/148910
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET