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In one-round sealed-bid auctions, each prospective buyer

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In one-round sealed-bid auctions, each prospective buyer [#permalink] New post 23 Dec 2012, 13:15
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28% (02:21) correct 71% (02:04) wrong based on 1 sessions
In one-round sealed-bid auctions, each prospective buyer submits in strict confidence a single bid, and the sale goes to the highest bidder. A reserve price - a minimum price below which there will be no sale - can be set by the seller as the protection against a token bid, which is an unreasonably low bid sometimes made by a bidder who gambles that there will be no other bid. Paradoxically, such protection is most needed when extremely desirable items are auctioned off this way.

Which of the following, if true about one-round sealed-bid auctions, most helps to explain why the generalization characterized above as paradoxical holds?

A. The bidder who submitted the winning bid on an item cannot, on being informed of this fact, decline acceptance of the item in favor of the next-highest bidder.
B. The identity of unsuccessful bidders is not disclosed unless those bidders themselves choose to disclose it.
C. The reserve price on an extremely desirable item is generally set high enough to yield a profit for the seller even if the winning bid just matches it.
D. Prospective buyers of an extremely desirable item can often guess quite accurately who at least some of the other prospective buyers are.
E. Prospective buyers tend to believe that, in order to be successful, a bid on an extremely desirable item would have to be so high as not to make economic sense.
[Reveal] Spoiler: OA
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Re: In one round sealed-bid auction... [#permalink] New post 23 Dec 2012, 15:09
Argument presents a paradox and the paradox is: "Why a minimum reserve price is set for the most desirable bids". Argument assumes that if it is "desirable" most bidders will try n present the highest quote so as to get the their desirable bid.

Only C and E are contenders.......
We can eliminate C as it says the reserve price set is high but the issue at hand is that reserve price must be low and moreover why a reserve price for most desirable bid. Option C partially answers the question of "Why reserve price for desirable bid" I say partial because the option does not answers why at all do we need reserve price for the most desirable bid. the option just answers why high reserve prices for the desirable bids. But the issue is why reserve price itself for the such bids.
second point to eliminate C is it violates the fact mentioned in the argument that reserve prices should low.

E is the correct answer because it brings into light the behavior of prospective bidders for such desirable bids. this behavior is that there may be many other bidder who may or may not be prospective bidder but since the bid is most desirable they will bid a very high quote and hence it may be not economical. So these prospective bidders may not even bid.Hence a limit or the least quote price is needed for most desirable bidders.
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Re: In one round sealed-bid auction... [#permalink] New post 23 Dec 2012, 18:45
ozodam81 wrote:
In one-round sealed-bid auctions, each prospective buyer submits in strict confidence a single bid, and the sale goes to the highest bidder. A reserve price - a minimum price below which there will be no sale - can be set by the seller as the protection against a token bid, which is an unreasonably low bid sometimes made by a bidder who gambles that there will be no other bid. Paradoxically, such protection is most needed when extremely desirable items are auctioned off this way.

Which of the following, if true about one-round sealed-bid auctions, most helps to explain why the generalization characterized above as paradoxical holds?

A. The bidder who submitted the winning bid on an item cannot, on being informed of this fact, decline acceptance of the item in favor of the next-highest bidder.
B. The identity of unsuccessful bidders is not disclosed unless those bidders themselves choose to disclose it.
C. The reserve price on an extremely desirable item is generally set high enough to yield a profit for the seller even if the winning bid just matches it.
D. Prospective buyers of an extremely desirable item can often guess quite accurately who at least some of the other prospective buyers are.
E. Prospective buyers tend to believe that, in order to be successful, a bid on an extremely desirable item would have to be so high as not to make economic sense.


You can better answer the CR questions by picking the crucial points in the passage and in the choices. For example in this question:

Crucial points in:

Passage: no one probably bids for an extremely desirable item, why?

Choice A: winner decline acceptance of item
Choice B:identity of unsuccessful bidders not disclosed
Choice C:reserve price is very high
Choice D:prospective buyers cannot be guessed
Choice E: belief that bids would be very high

We can easily see that Choice E makes the most sense.
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Re: In one round sealed-bid auction...   [#permalink] 23 Dec 2012, 18:45
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In one-round sealed-bid auctions, each prospective buyer

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