An agent-based model for sequential Dutch auctions.

Summary We propose an agent-based computational mode to investigate sequential Dutch auctions with particular emphasis on markets for perishable goods and we take as an example wholesale fish markets. Buyers in these markets sell the fish they purchase on a retail market. The paper provides an original model of boundedly rational behavior for wholesale buyers' behavior incorporating inter-temporal profit maximization, conjectures on opponents' behavior and fictive learning. We analyse the dynamics of the aggregate price under different market conditions in order to explain the emergence of market price patterns such as the well-known declining price paradox. The proposed behavioral model provides alternative explanations for market price dynamics to those which depend on standard hypotheses such as diminishing marginal profits.