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Free keywords:
Field experiment, ultimatum game, surplus division, bargaining, Internet trade, eBay
Abstract:
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.
