When Should Sellers Use Auctions?

When Should Sellers Use Auctions?

When it is costly to participate in the sale of an asset, potential buyers typically submit offers either simultaneously, as in an auction, or sequentially, so that later potential entrants may observe previous bids. We show in an IPV setting that when the entry process is selective, so that buyers with higher values are more likely to enter, both sellers and buyers generally prefer the sequent...

Should Sellers Prefer Auctions? A Laboratory Comparison of Auctions and Sequential Mechanisms

When bidders incur a cost to learn their valuations, bidder entry can impact auction performance. Two common selling mechanisms in this environment are an English auction, and a sequential bidding process. Bulow and Klemperer (2009) show, theoretically, that sellers should prefer the auction, because it generates higher expected revenues, while bidders should prefer the sequential mechanism, be...

Why Sellers Should Prefer Sequential Mechanisms

When Should We Use Natural Features?

Some features of computer programs can make the programs easier to use by enabling users to interact with them in the familiar ways they interact with other people. Including these features is hard, however, and doing a good job at it is even harder. We present some of these features, and compare the pros and cons of including them in a computer program. We conclude with criteria designers can ...

Programmers Should Still Use Slices When Debugging

What is the best technique for fault localization? In a study of 37 real bugs (and 37 injected faults) in more than a dozen open source C programs, we compare the effectiveness of statistical debugging against dynamic slicing—the first study ever to compare the techniques. On average, dynamic slicing is more effective than statistical debugging, requiring programmers to examine only 14% (42 lin...