Car plate tendering in Malaysia

• Main Author: Zhou, Yao
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: HF5001-6182 Business
• Online Access: https://etd.uum.edu.my/4642/1/s815648.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/4642/2/s815648_abstract.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/4642/
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

This is the first empirical research examining the determinants of car plate winning price. Detailed car plate auctioning information such as bidder demographic profile (age, race and gender) and bid price and bid premium are obtained from the Road Transport Department of Malaysia (RTD or JPJ) for the state of Kedah during 2011 to 2013. Capitalizing on this proprietary dataset, I attempt to quantify bidders’ willingness to pay for superstition believes and visual appealing numbers. Car plate numbers offer a good laboratory test to consumers’ willingness to pay since car plate numbers have no intrinsic value. More so in Malaysia where there is no secondary market for car plate where plate numbers are not transferable. I find support for superstition hypothesis where an addition of number “8”to a plate is associated with 9.4% premium in winning bid price while an addition of number “4” to a plate reduces the bid price by 10.4%. Chinese community perceives number “8” as lucky number because it rhymes similarly to the word “prosper” or “prosperity”. “4” is bad for it rhymes similarly to the word “die” or “death”. I also find support for visual appealing hypothesis where visually appealing plates are sold at the significant premium as compared to other plates. For example, single and double digits car plates are 181% and 42.4% more expensive than a non-single digit car plate