Economics Contest 2024: Auction Results

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the first economics contest results post for 2023. Ironically, this will be the only economics contest result post for this year. Later this year, I will run the Economic Challenge Series. This series will last for two months and will consist of seven challenges. They will be similar to the contests and challenges I ran last year. Later this month, I will begin the Sapien Loop contest series. These contests will focus on the contents of my new book, Sapien Loop. The prize will still be 30 Hive Power.

Winner determined in this Video

What is the Auction Contest?

The auction contest allows participants to bid on up to 5 of 12 items in an auction. The participant who bids the highest wins the item. Each item has a value. However, the values are not stated in the question. Instead, a range of values are stated. These values are generated using the Excel model shown in the video in this post. Participants should aim to win the items without bidding over their values. For example, if an item is valued at $80 and the winning bid is $60, the participant gains $20. The gains and losses made by each participant from their winning bids is summated. The participant who has gained the highest value is the winner. If two participants obtain the same value, the participant who entered first wins. If nobody obtains a positive gain in value, the contest will not have a winner and the prize will be rolled over to the next contest.

Responses to the contest are made in the comments section of the contest post. The account with the winning entry will receive 30 Hive Power.

The format of the required entry is explained in detail in the challenge itself.

For a more detailed explanation, you can access the challenge post using the following link.

Results of the Auction Contest

Table 1 contains the bids made by all participants and the winners of each auctioned item.

Table 1: Bids and winners of auctions

Note: Green font indicates winning bids, and red font indicates bids after the bid limit has been reached.

Of the 16 participants who entered, 6 won at least one auctioned item. @micheal87 won 4 items, @bhattg, @bereal47 and @stekene won 2 items each, and @yummycruz1 and @urrirru won 1 item each. Winning more items does not necessarily equate to obtaining the highest gain in value. The gains in value made per item won is critical in determining the overall winner.

Table 2 contains the values of each item (generated by the model) and the gains in value each participant made on their winning bids. Table 3 contains the overall gains in value made by each participant.

Table 2: Value of Items and Gains Made from Each Item

Table 3: Overall Gain in Value Made by Participants

Unfortunately, nobody won this contest. To win this contest, a participant needs to have the highest positive value. Everybody overbid on their auction wins. @urrirru came very close to winning with -0, which was actually -0.5 when considering rounding. If only you bid 776 instead. @stekene appeared to have a good strategy but was unlucky that the values of the items bid on were lower than expected.

Since nobody won, the 30 Hive Power will be rolled over to the next contest. This contest will contain questions about my new book. Therefore, that contest will have a winning prize of 60 Hive Power. If you want a big payday, I suggest you get reading.

Contest Tips and Analysis

This contest relies mostly on luck, but there are some strategies that can increase your chances of winning. Here are a few.

• Look for items with a limited number of bids. You can be the last bidder for that item and know you will not be beaten.
• Look for items that have the highest bids below the average (expected value). For example, if an item has a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 150, the expected value is 100. If the highest bid is below 100, it is worth bidding on.
• Look for items with a large range. These items have the best chances of scoring big gains. However, they are also the riskiest. This matters less when there are a large number of participants.
• Entering late provides the best chance of winning auctions, but if there are many participants, there may not be any items worth bidding on. It is worth checking back in on the contest to monitor the number of entries and the items that still look worth bidding on.

I hope the above tips help. The auction contest could be returning for the Challenge Series later in the year. Make better decisions next time; we need a winner.

More posts

I have several collections of posts. I have organised these collections based on content and purpose.

The first collection contains six collection posts created before PeakD had the collection feature. Four of these posts relate to the core of my content; one of them contains all my Actifit Posts, and one of them contains my video course, ‘Economics is Everyone’.

The second collection consists of the posts that I consider define my channel. These posts are significant in terms of content as well as how they contribute to the growth of the channel. These posts reveal the most about what I believe in.

The third and fourth collections are what I call my ‘Freedom-based Economics Living Book’. They contain all the posts that support my ideas about the value and power of freedom. Some of these posts explain what we can achieve with freedom and what we need to utilise it for. Some of them explain how we are deprived of freedom and how we often give up freedom for security and comfort. The third collection concludes with possible scenarios depending on what we (society) choose to do.

Hive: Future of Social Media

Spectrumecons on the Hive blockchain