We call ourselves Marketplace, so part of our job is exploring how marketplaces work, in all their forms. David Brancaccio and the “Marketplace Morning Report” team are setting out to visit in-person places of commerce, in a world where so much buying and selling has gone remote and digital. None are financial markets in a formal sense, but all markets are financial markets in a way, right? The goal is to learn the right and the wrong moves with experts.

This week: “A Business Reporter Goes to the Rodeo.” Today: the market mechanics of auctions, especially those for a good cause.

It’s a Friday morning junior market auction at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, where the students put their gorgeous goats, charming chickens, stately steers and luxurious lambs up for sale to the highest bidder. On stage, the No. 2 rated lamb: 173 pounds, medium wool and its name is Trump. Turns out, that’s sort of a popular choice these days — the No. 2 goat up for auction is also named Trump.

Most people in the crowd at this auction are holding a list of all 288 lots being sold off. Some also have a yardstick to wave to make a bid.

As for the “Marketplace Morning Report” crew, we come equipped with a peer-reviewed journal, volume 56 of “Management Science,” featuring the article “Charitable Motives and Bidding in Charity Auctions” to help us get better a understanding of what we’re looking at.

In a normal auction, people want to pay lowest prices for highest quality. Here, they are happy to pay way above the going rate for goats and lambs to generate a pile of philanthropic money, for a scholarship fund here in Texas.

“I believe the commitment for this year from the rodeo to the youth of Texas is $28 million,” said Tracy Troup, chairman of the Lamb and Goat Auction Committee.

Troup said the committee raised $4.2 million in last year’s sale. It’s a process that turns lambs and goats into what is actually two pots of cash — the big one for the education fund, and a smaller lump sum that goes to the animal’s student owner. It’s $40,000 to the owner of the grand champion lamb and $30,000 for the grand champion goat.

“They can use it for college education. They can use it to go purchase another animal to show next year. So they can use it for any purpose that they decide to use it for,” Troup said. “But the additional money that’s raised goes to scholarships.”

The No. 1 overall lamb at this year’s auction was raised by high school senior Madden Wise from Brownwood, Texas. The bidding started at $50,000. A normal wool lamb of this size would go at a commercial Texas auction for around $200 these days, but with charity as the incentive, the bidding quickly climbed north of $350,000.

Competing experiments have found that the higher the percentage to charity the higher the bidding in these kinds of auctions. That’s in part because charity-minded bidders collude in a benevolent way to get the number higher. The authors of the aforementioned study call people doing their charitable best to juice up the price “unpaid shills.” Out of respect for the public-spirited people here, let’s call them “philanthropic bidder-uppers.”

“First of all, it creates a little competition,” Troup said. “But it’s amazing. Most of the people in that room are very good friends. You have the added touch of the kids being here, and who doesn’t love to donate to a child.”

People bidding in charity auctions are doing it all or in part for a higher purpose, which confounds some economists who tend to think humans just do things selfishly. Some theorize that people bid so they, in return, receive what researchers call the “warm glow” of doing good. Or to get the benefits of signaling their good work to the wider community. The study has evidence that refutes that second part, showing little difference between anonymous bidding and bidding with your name attached. Maybe helping others is a reward in itself.

In the end, the top lamb goes for $450,000. Think about that: Wise’s neatly shaved, pink-hued lamb named 2Dotto goes for more than the median price of a home in America.