An Experimental Testing of Anchoring Effects in Discrete Choice Questions

This paper re-examines the openended/dichotomous choice question in the lab. It hasearlier been suggested that the dichotomous choiceformat suffers from anchoring and yea-saying.Comparing actual economic commitments for a privategood with a significant market value, we cannot rejectthe null hypothesis of equal WTP for the two formats.We conclude that problems with DC might be due toissues of how the survey is framed, not the DCquestion itself.     

Expectations and learning under alternative monetary regimes: an experimental approach

Summary We design and analyze experimental versions of monetary overlapping generations economies under alternative policy regimes. Economies with a constant level of real deficit financed through seignorage, economies in which the level of deficit is adapted in order to follow a monetary policy with a target rate of inflation, and economies with preannounced changes in deficit levels are reported here. We also examine the behavior of an economy with no stationary competitive equilibrium. Our time series are compared to rational expectations equilibrium paths and to adaptive learning dynamics.Financial support for our work from the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota, the National Science Foundation (SES-8912552), Richard M. and Margaret Cyert Family Funds, and the Ministry of Education of Spain is gratefully acknowledged. We wish to thank Javier Diaz-Giménez, Jean Michael Grandmont, Robert Lucas, Albert Marcet, Charles Plott, Edward Prescott, Thomas Sargent, Neil Wallace and Michael Woodford for commenting on our work. We also thank Vijay Rajan for developing the software for the computerized experimental environment, and Jackie Cuccaro and Dhananjay Gode for their research assistance.     

Common Value Auctions with Default: An Experimental Approach

This paper examines a common value auction in which bidder default is explicitly allowed. The lack of contractual enforcement has implications for the formation of bids as well as the revenue properties of the auction. Using a common value procurement auction, we explore these implications in an experimental setting. Our results show that bidders are more aggressive when default is allowed. A theoretical result shows that allowing default can actually be in the best interest of the auctioneer. Experimental evidence, however, indicates that this result does not hold true in practice. One possible reason for this discrepancy is that the data in our experiments is consistent with winner's curse behavior.     

Collective versus Random Fining: An Experimental Study on Controlling Ambient Pollution

This paper presents an experimental study oftwo different pollution compliance games:collective vis-à-vis random fining as ameans to regulate non-pointpollution. Using samples from both Costa Ricancoffee mill managers and Costa Rican students,we find that the two games perform equivalentlybut, although they lead to efficient outcomesthrough Nash play in the majority of cases, theobserved frequency of Nash play is lower thantheoretically predicted. Moreover, we rejectthe hypothesis that managers and studentsbehave equally. Off the equilibrium, managerstend to over-abate, whereas students tend tounder-abate. This result suggests theimportance of considering subject pooldifferences in the evaluation of environmentalpolicies by means of experiments, particularlyif those policies involve certain forms ofmanagement decisions.     

Conventions and Local Interaction Structures: Experimental Evidence

We present a series of experimental coordination games with a payoff-dominant and a risk-dominant Nash equilibrium. We examine how much local interaction structures affect players' strategy choices. Our three major observations are the following: First, local interaction with open neighborhoods along a circle leads to less coordination on the payoff-dominant equilibrium than interaction in closed neighborhoods. Second, when players are allocated around a circle, the neighborhood size has, in the long run, no effect on the players' strategy choices. Third, with the same neighborhood size, players allocated on a lattice tend less than players allocated around a circle to coordinate on the payoff-dominant equilibrium. This is true even though the players are given exactly the same instructions. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, C92.     

以相似度为基础的股票短期价格行为实验研究

使用以相似度为基础的比较方法对股票短期价格变动进行了分析.首先以特定条件对股票数据进行筛选以进入观测实验,以此模拟股票技术分析的分析方法,在此基础上形成了对多个离散的小数据片断进行分析的方法.在以20天的小片断数据为基础分析了我国股票短期价格行为后,得到不同相似度样本之间差距不显著的结论,说明以短期价格变动相似度为依据的股票价格预测是缺乏实证性的.     

碳排放配额政策的环境效应和贸易效应研究

基于不完全市场竞争理论,构建了两个对称国家碳排放配额政策选择与企业碳减排选择的两阶段博弈模型,运用逆向求解法求得了均衡解,并通过进一步分析碳排放许可证政策、碳排放配额许可交易政策和许可交易碳排放权合作政策的福利效应,得出了两国政府碳排放配额政策选择的激励相容条件和参与约束条件,确定了全局稳定均衡最优解及其条件;此外,还分析了两国政府碳排放许可证政策、碳排放配额许可交易政策和许可交易碳排放权合作政策的环境效应和贸易效应。结果表明：从福利效应来看,许可交易碳排放权合作政策是全局稳定最优解,可以资源的有效配置,实现Pareto改进;从环境效应来看,许可交易碳排放权合作政策也是严格占优的,有助于减少各国和全球净污染排放量;从贸易效应来看,碳排放配额许可交易政策好于许可交易碳排放权合作政策。因此,北-北型对称国家会优先选择许可交易碳排放权合作政策,南一南型对称国家在一定时期内仍然会优先选择碳排放配额许可交易政策,南-南或北-北型对称国家之间容易实现碳排放政策合作,实现全球环境合作还有待时日。     

Efficiency of Nonpoint Source Pollution Instruments: An Experimental Study

In nonpoint source pollution problems, the regulator does not observe each polluters individual emission, which prevents him from using the conventional policy instruments. Therefore, new instruments have been designed to regulate this type of pollution. In an experiment, we compare the efficiency of some of these instruments: an input-based tax, an ambient tax/subsidy, an ambient tax, and a group fine. We assume that polluters themselves are affected by environmental damages. A control session without any regulation is also carried out in order to study the status quo situation. Our experimental data show that the input tax and the ambient tax are very efficient and reliable, and the group fine is fairly efficient and reliable. These instruments improve social welfare with respect to the status quo. On the contrary, the ambient tax/subsidy decreases social welfare with respect to the status quo, and its effect is very unreliable.     

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.     

How Applicable is the Dominant Firm Model of Price Leadership?

In this paper, we examine the usefulness of the dominant firm model of price leadership to serve as a benchmark for organizing behavior in laboratory markets. This well established model, whose origins can be traced back over a hundred years, has been recently applied to such landmark antitrust cases as Standard Oil and Alcoa and more recently to the analysis of deregulated markets for electric power. Our results indicate that in posted offer markets the dominant firm quite often produces more than the model's benchmark and sometimes at much greater prices. With sealed offer auction rules and a low elasticity of fringe supply, the dominant firm produces the theoretical output at a price greater than the prediction. However, with a high elasticity of fringe supply, the dominant firm produces more output over a wide range of prices that includes the predicted price.     

国际价值与国际价格:劳动价值论的解释

马克思在劳动价值论中对于商品的国民价值向国际价值转移的内在机制及相关理论没有形成系统的论述。笔者认为,商品的国际价值量由“世界劳动的平均单位”决定,并且只有进入国际市场的那一部分商品才具备国际价值量的属性。遵循价格围绕价值波动的基本原理,国际价格也是围绕国际价值波动的。在国际贸易利益的分配上,参与国际贸易的商品可以获取国际价值和国际价格的双重利益。     

The Evolution of Cooperation in Patent Races:Theory and Experimental Evidence

In a dynamic patent race model we analyze the formation and breakup of joint ventures in relation to: (a) the relative as well as absolute position of the firms in the race; (b) the degree of competition in the ex post market. Fudenberg et al. (1983) studied the main features of a patent race when firms compete in R&D, showing that firms in the same position compete fiercely, dissipating the rent from innovation. By contrast, we show that if firms can cooperate or compete in R&D, and if they start in the same position, they cooperate at the outset but break their agreement in the last stage if they will be serious competitors in the downstream market, while, if they can collude in the ex post market, they cooperate from the outset and they innovate jointly. When the firms are lagged by one step, cooperation does not take place, except in the case the value of the race is negative and the cost saving due to cooperation is large. However, cooperation never occurs if the leader is more than one step ahead. Finally, when the firms cooperate in R&D they proceed to the discovery at low speed. We test these conclusions via experiments on the incentive to cooperate during the course of a race. The results of a sample of 86 races support our theoretical conclusions, although the experimental findings are less clear-cut than the theoretical ones.     

Blindfolded vs. Informed Ultimatum Bargaining – A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis

This paper analyzes blindfolded vs. informed ultimatum bargaining where proposer and responder are both either uninformed or informed about the size of the pie. Considering the transition from one information setting to another suggests that more information induces lower (higher) price offers and acceptance thresholds when the pie is small (large). While our experimental data confirm this transition effect, risk aversion leads to diverging results in blindfolded ultimatum bargaining where task‐independent strategies such as ‘equal sharing’ or the ‘golden mean’ are implemented more frequently.     

Market Power in Emissions Trading Markets Ruled by a Multiple Unit Double Auction: Further Experimental Evidence

We discuss selected methodological problems of previous Double Auction (DA) experiments and test the hypothesis that a Multiple Unit Double Auction (MUDA) is able to prevent market power in an emissions trading market. Additionally, we analyze how the information subjects receive about the market structure and different levels of subjects’ experience influence the behavior. Based on a larger number of independent observations than analyzed in previous studies, the experiment generates two main results. First, emissions trading markets ruled by a MUDA realize a high degree of efficiency even under market power conditions. However, a MUDA is, in general, not able to restrict market power. We observe persistent price discrimination in two market power environments, i.e., the distribution of profits is strongly shifted in favor of the strong market side without greatly harming efficiency. This result is independent of the information to subjects about the market structure. Second, when subjects are experienced, the efficiency is higher and the ability of the strong market side to exercise market power declines strongly. However, the variability of behavior is large and the strong market side is still able to realize supracompetitive profits in some groups.      

Airing Your Dirty Laundry: A Quick Marketable Pollution Permits Game for the Classroom

In this article, the authors describe a simple classroom game that demonstrates the advantage of tradable emissions permits in regulating environmental pollution. Students take on the role of polluters who must consider the costs of complying with a uniform reduction and a tradable permits program. The class is divided into high-cost polluters and low-cost polluters so students can observe the gains from trade as high-cost students purchase pollution rights from the low-cost students in the tradable permits scenario. A major advantage of the game is that it can be conducted within as little as 20 minutes and does not require that students have prior knowledge of economics or regulatory policies. This makes the game appropriate for economics and noneconomics courses alike.     

Price Expectations and the Australian Price Level: 1901–30*

This paper examines the sources of change in Australian prices in the first three decades of this century. It probes the information content of simple ‘money is dominant’ models of inflation and of the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and shows that price expectations played a dramatically different role then than in the 1970s.     

实验经济学的兴起与公共产品理论的发展

实验经济学是经济学的一个新的分支,其研究内容主要包括个人决策、市场交易、博弈论、学习理论和方法论。它的兴起对公共财政论的核心理论——公共产品理论产生了影响,加深了搭便车问题的研究,对如何有效提供公共产品从实验角度给出了有益的启示,推动了公共产品理论的研究。     

Method in Experiment: Rhetoric and Reality

The methodological ideal of experimentalists, E, is easily stated: derive a testable hypothesis, H, from a well-specified theory, T; implement experiments with a design; implicitly in the latter are auxiliary hypotheses, A, that surface in the review/discussion of completed research reports (payoffs are 'adequate,' Ss are 'relevant,' instructions, context are 'clear,' etc.). We want to be able to conclude, if statistical test outcomes support not-H, that T is 'falsified.' But this is not what we do; rather we ask if there is a flaw in the test, i.e. not-A is supported, and we do more experiments. This is good practice—much better than the statistical rhetoric of falsificationism. Undesigned social processes allow E to accumulate technical and instrumental knowledge that drive the reduction of experimental error and constitute a more coherent methodology than falsificationism.     

反馈型交易策略与资产价格演化

本文研究投资者的反馈型交易策略和学习机制是如何影响资产价格演化的.首先,运用Markov链方法刻画了反馈型投资者的信念更新机制;其次,运用演化博弈模型分析了正反馈及负反馈这两种交易策略在市场中的演化;最后,构建了市场由基本面投资者和反馈型投资者构成的风险资产价格演化模型,分析了基本面投资者的信息收集成本对其套利行为的影响.仿真结果表明,当基本面投资者的信息收集成本较大时,其套利行为受到限制,持续预期交易者在与基本面投资者的博弈中生存下来,并逐渐将基本面投资者和反转预期交易者赶出市场,使得资产价格持续偏离基本价值,持续预期交易者的财富逐渐增加,而基本面投资者的财富急剧减少.本文提出的模型为泡沫及反泡沫产生的原因提供了一种可能的解释,同时表明,市场监管部门应尽力减小投资者的信息收集成本,从而增强市场的有效性.