Fish loads are presented on a conveyer belt and, while the auctioneer calls out details of the lots, the decreasing sequence is displayed on a large electronic scoreboard overhead.
Rational decision makers would anticipate the winner's curse but experiments dealing with this phenomenon show that humans easily step into the pitfall set up by the auctioneer.
In so doing, the auctioneer reaps a higher benefit than it should without the bidders knowing.
The auctioneer is selected at random from the bidders and it is given a key to access all sealed bids.
In particular, the auctioneer now need not be accessible to (electronic) buyers, and so is not subject to interference from them.
He acquired wealth not only as a distiller, but also as an auctioneer of army surplus items.
Only the auctioneer and the bidder know the highest bid.
Thus, the auctioneer can only determine the order of bids and allocate the second highest bid to the winner.
