Emerging behavior in electronic bidding
Statistical Mechanics
2009-11-10 v1
Abstract
We characterize the statistical properties of a large number of agents on two major online auction sites. The measurements indicate that the total number of bids placed in a single category and the number of distinct auctions frequented by a given agent follow power-law distributions, implying that a few agents are responsible for a significant fraction of the total bidding activity on the online market. We find that these agents exert an un-proportional influence on the final price of the auctioned items. This domination of online auctions by an unusually active minority may be a generic feature of all online mercantile processes.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0301513,
title = {Emerging behavior in electronic bidding},
author = {I. Yang and H. Jeong and B. Kahng and A. -L. Barabasi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0301513},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4pages, 5figures