William Vickrey's predicted equivalences between first-price sealed-bid and Dutch auctions, and between second-price sealed-bid and English auctions, are tested using field experiments that auctioned off collectible trading cards over the Internet. The results indicate that the Dutch auction produces 30-percent higher revenues than the first-price auction format, a violation of the theoretical prediction and a reversal of previous laboratory results, and that the English and second-price formats produce roughly equivalent revenues. (JEL C93, D44)

Demand Reduction in Multiunit Auctions: Evidence from a Sportscard Field Experiment by John A. List and David Lucking-Reiley. Published in volume 90, issue 4, pages 961-972 of American Economic Review, September 2000