Student Seminar Series - April 26, 2005
University of Minnesota
School of Statistics
College of Liberal Arts

Optimal Bidding Strategies for a Non-durable Consumer Good


Barb Bennie


Tuesday, April 26, 2005
2:00 PM, 300 Ford Hall
Minneapolis, East Bank Campus

Refreshments at 1:30 PM
300 Ford Hall


Abstract

 Agents in an economy compete via bidding to purchase a non-durable consumer good (e.g. pizza) with money in a series of discrete stages. The amount of good available in each stage is cyclic. At the end of each stage of bidding, the agents receive an amount of good that is proportional to their bids, and the total money spent on the good is recirculated to the agents in some symmetric way. There is a tension within the economy for each agent to buy some good in the current stage, but save some money for purchasing in the future. The goal of this research is to find bidding strategies for the agents that are optimal for various formulations of this game.