Endogenizing market institutions: An experimental approach

We study experimental two-sided markets in which the information structure is endogenous. When submitting an offer, a trader decides which other traders will be informed about the offer. This setup allows both a decentralized bargaining market (Chamberlin, J. Polit. Econ. 56 (1948) 95), and a double auction market (Smith J. Polit. Econ. 70 (1962) 111) as special cases. The results show that offers are typically directed to all traders of the other side of the market, but to none of the traders of the same side of the market. Even though traders receive much less information, the resulting market institution leads to the same outcomes in terms of prices and efficiency as a double auction market. In two additional treatments we examine the robustness of these results. First, it is found that the market institution adapts predictably, but not necessarily efficiently, to the imposition of transaction costs. Second, we find that the preference of sellers to conceal offers from competitors is strict. At the same time, sellers benefit collectively when they reveal offers to each other.     

An ascending double auction

We show why the failure of the affiliation assumption prevents the double auction from achieving efficient outcomes when values are interdependent. This motivates the study of an ascending price version of the double auction. It is shown that when there is a sufficiently large, but still finite, number of sellers, this mechanism has an approximate perfect Bayesian equilibrium in which traders continue bidding if and only if their true estimates of the ‘value’ of the object being traded exceed the current price. This equilibrium is ex post efficient and has a rational expectations property in the sense that along the equilibrium path traders appear to have made the best possible trades conditional on information revealed by the trading process. We thank two anonymous referees and Dan Kovenock, the Editor, whose detailed comments and suggestions have allowed us to substantially improve the paper. We also thank seminar participants at University of Toronto, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Summer 2003 North American Meetings of the Econometric Society, 2004 NSF Decentralization Conference for their comments.     

Optimal sale across venues and auctions with a buy-now option

We characterize the optimal selling mechanism for a seller who faces demand demarcated by a high and a low end and who can access an (online) auction site (by paying an access cost) in addition to using his own store that can be used as a posted price selling venue. We first solve for the optimal mechanism of a direct revelation game in which there is no venue-restriction constraint. We find that the direct optimal mechanism must necessarily incorporate a certain kind of pooling. We then show that even with the venue constraint, the seller can use a two stage indirect mechanism that implements the allocation rule from the optimal direct mechanism, and uses the venues in an optimal fashion. The first stage of the indirect mechanism is a posted price at the store. If the object is not sold, we move to stage two, which involves an auction at the auction site. A feature of this auction is a buy-now option which is essential for implementing the pooling feature of the optimal direct mechanism. We also show that the buy-now option in the optimal mechanism is of a “temporary” variety, and that a “permanent” buy-now option, in contrast, cannot implement the optimal mechanism. Auctions with a temporary buy-now option are in widespread use on eBay. We thank the Associate Editor, George Deltas, for his insightful comments. We also thank seminar participants at the University of Basel and the SAET conference 2007.     

On the efficiency of ex ante and ex post pricing institutions

Summary This paper compares the performance of three pricing institutions in a decentralized matching model in which random matching occurs. In the first, sellers make public ex ante commitments to trade at pre-specified prices before matching occurs. In the second, the buyer and seller engage in an alternating offer bargaining game once a match has occurred. In the final pricing institution, one party is chosen at random to make a take it or leave it price offer. The steady state equilibrium with ex ante pricing pareto dominates the steady state equilibrium with ex post take it or leave it offers, which in turn pareto dominates the steady state equilibrium with alternating offers. As the discount factor goes to one, the equilibrium with ex ante pricing generates participation rates that tend toward the pareto efficient level. The ex post pricing institutions generate participation rates that are bounded away from efficient levels. The surplus loss associated with switching from ex ante pricing to take it or leave it offers is small when the discount factor is close to one. Contrary to many models of decentralized trade, ex post pricing institutions encourage too much search by buyers.The financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged. The research for this paper was completed while the author was visiting the University of California at San Diego. The author thanks Douglas Gale for comments.     

The preference reversal phenomenon: Response mode,markets and incentives

Summary This paper addresses the apparent conflict between the results of experiments on individual choice and judgement and the results of market experiments. Data are reported for experiments designed to analyze the effects of (a) economic incentives, repetition, feedback and information and (b) choice and valuation response modes on (c) subjects' decisions in paired market and nonmarket environments. Causes of divergent market and nonmarket behavior are identified in the context of the preference reversal phenomenon (PRP). Study of the PRP is extended to two types of market environments. The PRP is observed on the first repetition in a market setting (second price auction) with immediate feedback, both with and without financial incentives. However, after five repetitions of the auction, the subjects' bids are generally consistent with their choices and the asymmetry between the rates of predicted and unpredicted reversals disappears. An individual pricing task using the BDM mechanism yields similar results on the first repetition but results which differ from the second price auction on the fifth repetition. Choice tasks produce lower rates of reversals than do pricing tasks in both market and individual decision making settings.We are grateful for financial support from the National Science Foundation (grant no. SES-8820552) and the California Institute of Technology. Research facilities were provided by the Economic Science Laboratory at the University of Arizona. Valuable computer programming was provided by Sean Coates and Shawn LaMaster. We thank Professor Jeffrey Dubin for his help in setting up the software for the generalized Tobit model, and Professors Joyce Berg, Graham Loomes, and Charles R. Plott for helpful comments.     

Evolution of markets: a simulation with centralized,decentralized and posted offer formats

We apply standard evolutionary dynamics to study trader participation in three competing market formats —call market (CM), posted offer (PO) and decentralized market (DM). In our framework, heterogeneous buyers and sellers seek to transact a homogeneous good, which can be done by allocating their time among three different market formats. Our results show that (i) the final participation of traders in the CM is much higher, (ii) the PO can coexist with the CM, (iii) the DM unravels when competing against CM and (iv) the DM can coexist with the PO, depending on the initial participation conditions. Thus, we demonstrate that agent-based micro-simulations coupled with replication dynamics can reproduce most of the previously known theoretical results and have the potential to investigate other commonly used hybrid auction protocols.     

When does Strategic Debt-service Matter?

Recent work in corporate finance has suggested that strategic debt-service by equity-holders works to lower debt values and raise yield spreads substantially. We show that this is not quite correct. With optimal cash management, defaults occassioned by deliberate underperformance (strategic defaults) and those forced by inadequate cash (liquidity defaults) work as substitutes: allowing for strategic debt-service leads to a decline in the equilibrium likelihood of liquidity defaults. In some cases, this decline is sufficiently sharp that equilibrium debt values actually increase and yield spreads decline. We provide an intuitive explanation for these results in terms of an interaction of optionalitiesExpanded versions of this paper were presented in conferences and seminars at the Scottish Institute for Research in Finance, European Finance Association, Western Finance Association, Financial Management Association, 10th Derivative Securities Conference, Santa Clara University, Virginia Tech, the Norwegian School of Management, the Norwegian School of Business and Economics, Duke University, and Carnegie-Mellon University. We benefitted greatly from the comments of participants at these seminars and would particularly like to thank Francesca Cornelli, Kose John, Pete Kyle, Sanjay Unni, and Raman Uppal in this context     

Market behavior in bid,offer, and double auctions: A Reexmination

This study examines the robustness of the previously observed [Smith (1964)] differences in market behavior between double auctions (both buyers and sellers may enter price quotes), bid auctions (only buyers may enter price quotes), and offer auctions (only sellers may enter price quotes). Based on the results of twenty-one market experiments, we find little support for the a priori hypothesis that bid auction prices tend to be greater than double auction prices which tend to be greater than offer auction prices.     

Endogenous market segmentation with heterogeneous agents

Summary. An explanation is provided for the evolution of segmented marketplaces in a pairwise exchange economy. Large traders operating in a pairwise exchange market prefer to meet other similar traders, because this enables them to trade their endowments in a smaller number of encounters. Large and small traders, however, cannot be distinguished a priori, and the existence of the small traders imposes a negative externality on the large traders. We show that, under conditions which are not very restrictive, establishing a separate market (perhaps with an entry fee) designated for the large traders induces the two types of traders to segment themselves. However, this segmentation is not necessarily welfare improving. Received: January 12, 2001; revised version: July 17, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" I wish to thank the participants in the Friday Theory Workshop at the University of Sydney, and the participants at the 17th Australian Theory Workshop at the University of Melbourne for comments and discussion. John Hillas and Stephen King pointed out an omission in an earlier version, and Catherine de Fontenay and Hodaka Morita made extensive comments on earlier drafts. This work was initiated while I was a short-term visitor at the University of Southern California.     

我国网上拍卖中竞买者出价行为的实证分析

本文从竞买者出价频率与出价水平特征、出价时间过程的自相似性、出价水平的动态变化,以及出价水平的影响因素效应等四个方面,对我国网上拍卖中竞买者的出价行为进行了实证分析,结果发现:与eBay网上竞买者的出价行为相比,我国网上竞买者具有很高的倾向在后期出价,潜在影响因素易于在拍卖后期对竞买者的出价水平产生较大的影响;竞买者具有较强的投机心理,其出价行为存在较大的个体差异,缺乏规范、典型的模式。     

Ex ante versus interim rationality and the existence of bubbles

Summary Tirole (1982) is commonly interpreted as proving that bubbles are impossible with finitely many rational traders with common priors. We study a simple variation of his model in which bubbles can occur, even though traders have common priors and common knowledge that the asset has no fundamental value. In equilibrium, agents purchase the asset at successively higher prices until the bubble bursts and no subsequent trade occurs. Each trader's initial wealth determines the last date at which he could possibly trade. The date at which the bubble bursts is a function of these finite truncation dates for the individual traders. Since initial wealth is private information, no trader knows when the bubble will burst. There are two key differences between our model and Tirole's which enable us to construct equilibrium bubbles this way. First, Tirole requires ex ante optimality, while we only require every trader's strategy to be optimal conditional on his information — i.e., interim optimal. As we argue in the text, this would seem to be the relevant definition of optimality. Second, Tirole considers competitive equilibria, while we analyze a simple bargaining game.We thank Abhijit Banerjee, James Dow, Itzhak Gilboa, Debra Holt, Fallaw Sowell, Sanjay Srivastava, Stan Zin, seminar participants at Pennsylvania State University, Indian Statistical Institute at Calcutta, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Rochester, the University of Maryland, the London Business School, the University of British Columbia, and the Sixth World Congress, and Michael Woodford and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. Both authors were at Carnegie Mellon University when this research was begun. The second author also thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for financial support.     

A theoretical analysis of institutional investors' trading costs in auction and dealer markets

This paper compares trading costs for institutional investors subject to liquidity shocks, in auction and dealer markets. The batch auction restricts the institutions' ability to exploit informational advantages because of competition between institutions when they simultaneously submit orders. This competition lowers aggregate trading costs. In the dealership market, competition between traders is absent but private information is revealed by observing the flow of successive orders and so reduces aggregate trading costs. We analyse the relative effects on trading costs of competition and information revelation in the two systems and derive a parameter inequality which determines which system has lower costs.     

Asymmetric Demand Information in Uniform and Discriminatory Call Auctions: An Experimental Analysis Motivated by Electricity Markets

We study experimental multi-unit uniform and discriminatory auctions with demand uncertainty, motivated by the ongoing debate about market design in the electricity industry. We study the effect of asymmetric demand-information in the two auction institutions. In our treatment condition some sellers have less information than in our baseline conditions. In both conditions transaction prices and price volatility are not significantly different under the two auction institutions. However, under asymmetric information discriminatory auctions are significantly less efficient. These results are not in line with typical arguments made in favor of discriminatory pricing in electricity industries; namely, lower prices and less volatility.     

Limit orders,asymmetric information,and the formation of asset prices with a computerized specialist

We analyze the existence of equilibrium in an asset market under asymmetric information. Price formation is modeled as a bilateral sealed bid auction where uninformed and informed traders submit limit orders to a computerized specialist. The computerized specialist is programmed to sell to the highest bidder and buy from the seller asking the lowest price. We show that this mechanism — which is designed to model the Globex and RAES trading institutions used in Chicago, London, New York, Paris, and Germany — yields an equilibrium in which the bid-ask spread is endogenously random and the passive specialist earns nonnegative profits.     

A choice of auction format in seller cheating: a signaling game analysis

In this paper, we examine which auction format, first-price or second-price, a seller will choose when he can profitably cheat in a second price auction by observing all bids by possible buyers and submitting a shill bid as pretending to be a buyer. We model this choice of auction format in seller cheating as a signaling game in which the buyers may regard the selection of a second price auction by the seller as a signal that he is a shill bidder. By introducing trembling-hand perfectness as a refinement of signaling equilibrium, we find two possible strictly perfect signaling equilibria. One is a separating equilibrium in which a noncheating honest seller selects a first price auction and a cheating seller does a second price auction. In another pooling equilibrium, however, both cheating and non-cheating sellers select a second price auction. The conclusion that a seller chooses a second price auction even if he cannot cheat is in contrast to the previous literature, which focused on the case of independent values. We thank an anonymous referee for useful comments that have improved the paper. This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 15310023 and (C) 18530139.     

Ascending auctions for multiple objects: the case for the Japanese design

Summary. We consider two ascending auctions for multiple objects, namely, an English and a Japanese auction, and derive a perfect Bayesian equilibrium of the Japanese auction by exploiting its strategic equivalence with the survival auction, which consists of a finite sequence of sealed-bid auctions. Thus an equilibrium of a continuous time game is derived by means of backward induction in finitely many steps. We then show that all equilibria of the Japanese auction induce equilibria of the English auction, but that many collusive or signaling equilibria of the English auction do not have a counterpart in the Japanese auction.Received: 2 September 2004, Revised: 20 April 2005, JEL Classification Numbers: C72, D44.Fabrizio Germano: Correspondence toWe are indebted to Philippe Jehiel for useful discussions and to Nicolas Vieille for suggestions in the proof of Proposition 2; we also thank seminar audiences in Athens, Basel, Beer-Sheva, Berlin, Brussels, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Exeter, Lausanne, Lisbon, London, Louvain-la-Neuve, Namur and Tel Aviv. Germano acknowledges financial support from Euopean Commission, TMR Network Grant ERBFMRXCT0055, “Cooperation and Information” as well from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, Grants SEC2001-0792, SEJ2004-06319, and in form of a Ramon y Cajal Fellowship. Lovo is member of GREGHEC, unité CNRS, FRE-2810. The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is also gratefully acknowledged. The work was part of the programme of the ESRC Research for Economic Learning and Social Evolution.     

How do selling mechanisms affect profits,surplus, capacity and prices with unknown demand?

I analyze a model in which a seller wishes to sell multiple homogeneous goods to a large group of buyers with unknown demand. The seller may either sell objects via a posted‐price mechanism, a discriminatory‐price auction, a uniform‐price auction, their open‐bid analogs, or a revelation mechanism in which the seller first asks all potential buyers to report their valuations and then sets a reserve price. I show that the revelation mechanism leads to the greatest profits, the auction mechanisms result in identical expected profits and the posted‐price mechanism results in the smallest profits. However, the more profitable mechanisms impose stronger informational requirements that may make these mechanisms infeasible in practice, and the posted‐price mechanism also results in the greatest total surplus. I also find the seller chooses a lower capacity and reserve price in an auction than in the posted‐price mechanism.     

Auctions with Financial Externalities

We study auctions with financial externalities, i.e., auctions in which losers care about how much the winner pays. In the first-price auction, larger financial externalities result in a lower expected price; in the second-price auction, the effect is ambiguous. Although the expected price in the second-price auction may increase if financial externalities increase, the seller is not able to gain more revenue by guaranteeing the losers a fraction of the auction revenue. With a reserve price, we find that both auctions may have pooling at the reserve price. This finding suggests that identical bids need not be a signal of collusion, in contrast to what is sometimes argued in anti-trust cases. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Dutch National Science Foundation (NWO 510.010.501 and NWO-VICI 453.03.606). For valuable discussions and comments, we would like to thank Eric van Damme, Jacob Goeree, Thomas Kittsteiner, Marta Kolodziejczyk, seminar participants at Tilburg University, Humboldt University Berlin, and National University of Singapore, and audiences at ESEM 2001 in Lausanne, and the FEEM 2002 conference in Milan on auctions and market design. The suggestions of an anonymous referee of this Journal greatly improved the article. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Investment Incentives Under Emission Trading: An Experimental Study

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on incentives to adopt advanced abatement technology under emissions trading. Our experimental design mimics an industry with small asymmetric polluting firms regulated by different schemes of tradable permits. We consider three allocation/auction policies: auctioning off (costly) permits through an ascending clock auction, grandfathering permits with re-allocation through a single-unit double auction, and grandfathering with re-allocation through an ascending clock auction. Our results confirm both dynamic and static theoretical equivalence of auctioning and grandfathering. We nevertheless find that although the market institution used to reallocate permits does not impact the dynamic efficiency from investment, it affects the static efficiency from permit trading.