Auction theory states that setting a non-trivial reservation price will generally reduce efficiency. However, new research has shown that reservation prices can have strong signaling effects on equilibrium outcomes. Using data from online P2P loan auctions, we show that the optimal reservation price varies nonlinearly in borrower quality (credit score and debt-to-income) as it balances the tradeoff between offering higher rates of return to attract bidders against potentially signaling low quality and causing the borrower to pay higher interest rates.

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平衡吸引力与风险揭示：P2P贷款拍卖中的最优保留价格

拍卖理论指出，设定不平凡的保留价格通常会降低效率。然而，新的研究表明，预订价格可以对均衡结果产生强烈的信号效应。使用在线 P2P 贷款拍卖的数据，我们表明，最佳保留价格随借款人质量（信用评分和债务收入比）呈非线性变化，因为它平衡了提供较高回报率以吸引投标人与潜在的低质量信号和潜在的低质量信号之间的权衡。导致借款人支付更高的利率。