The Influence of Outside Options on Second-Price Auction Outcomes

This work deals with the study of subjects' behavior in an auction and attempts to contribute a small part of understanding to the big picture of this topic by targeting the following two research questions: Is there a difference between outside options for all or a lottery for an outside option for one "loser" with equivalent expected value? Does group size influence bids in a second price auction? To answer these questions we conducted an experiment at the Max Jung laboratory, sited at Graz University.