Competing with Asking Prices
Event details
| Date | 06.03.2015 |
| Hour | 10:30 › 12:00 |
| Speaker | Benjamin LESTER (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia) |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
In many markets, sellers advertise their good with an asking price. This is a price at which the seller will take his good off the market and trade immediately, though it is understood that a buyer can submit an offer below the asking price and that this offer may be accepted if the seller receives no better offers. Despite their prevalence in a variety of real world markets, asking prices have received little attention in the academic literature. We construct an environment with a few simple, realistic ingredients and demonstrate that using an asking price is optimal: it is the pricing mechanism that maximizes sellers’ revenues and it implements the efficient outcome in equilibrium. We provide a complete characterization of this equilibrium and use it to explore the positive implications of this pricing mechanism for transaction prices and allocations.
Links
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free