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Sungwon Cho, Cannon Koo, John A List, Changwon Park , Pablo Polo, Jason F Shogren, Robert Wilhelmi

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We evaluate the impact of three auction mechanisms - the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism, the second-price auction, and the random nth-price auction - in the measurement of willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) measures of value. Our results show that initial bidding in trial 1 in each auction does not contradict the endowment effect; but that, if it is the endowment effect that governs people's initial bidding behavior, it can be eliminated with repetitions of a second-price or random nth-price auction; and if the thesis is that the effect should persist across auctions and across trials is right, our results suggest that there is no fundamental endowment effect.