Ulrike Malmendier
Economist and first author of "The Bidder's Curse" (2011), which found eBay auctions often ending above a fixed price shown on the same page.
Who they are
Malmendier and Young Han Lee compared eBay auction prices with the fixed buy-it-now price for the same item on the same page, in a paper published in the American Economic Review in 2011. In detailed data on one board game, 42 per cent of auctions ended above the fixed price, and 48 per cent did across a broad cross-section of goods. A small share of bidders, 17 per cent, was enough to generate the overbidding.
The authors found limited attention the most consistent explanation: bidders were not taking account of the cheaper option beside them. Henry Schneider argued in 2016 that search costs can explain the pattern without assuming irrational bidding.
Key papers
Malmendier, U., & Lee, Y. H. (2011). "The bidder's curse." American Economic Review, 101(2), 749-787. doi:10.1257/aer.101.2.749.
Key ideas
See The Winner's Curse and Competitive Arousal.
Sources
- Malmendier and Lee (2011), abstract read (AEA and NBER pages), 12 October 2026.