Despite the growing research interest in Internet auctions, particularly those on eBay, little is known about the quantifiable consumer welfare accrued from such mechanisms. Using an ongoing novel field experiment, we collect and examine a unique dataset to empirically quantify and understand determinants of consumer surplus in eBay auctions. Our analysis, based on a sample of 5157 eBay auction...

Changes in total surplus and deadweight loss are traditional measures of economic welfare. We propose necessary and sufficient conditions for rationalizing consumer demand data with a quasilinear utility function. Under these conditions, consumer surplus is a valid measure of consumer welfare. For nonmarketed goods, we propose necessary and sufficient conditions on market data for efficient pro...

O important decision firms must make is to select the product line (characteristics and number of products) to offer consumers. This paper explores the effect of the interaction between consumer evaluation costs and pricing on the optimal product line length to offer consumers. Before deciding to buy a product among all products offered, a consumer learns the product line length. Given the prod...

INTRODUCTION In economic theory economic surplus refers to two related quantities: Consumer and producer surplus. Applying this theory to health care "convenience" could be one way how consumer benefits might manifest itself. METHODS Various areas of economic surplus were identified and subsequently screened and analyzed in Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, and the UK: Cesarean births, emergen...

In this paper, we examine the consequences of demand-function heterogeneity for the estimation of the consumer surplus. In particular, we show that, given a linear demand function with random coefficients, one can consistently estimate the consumer surplus distribution without making parametric assumptions about the coefficient distribution. The approach is illustrated using data on gasoline co...