Cash Flow Volatility, Prices and Price Volatility: An Experimental Study

The value of an asset is equal to the present value of its expected future cash flows. It is affected by the magnitude, timing and riskiness, or volatility, of the cash flows. We hypothesize that if the expected values of two assets?? cash flows are equal, the value of the asset with more volatile cash flows will be lower. Furthermore, we examine the impact of the volatility of cash flows on the volatility of prices. We consider a simple experimental environment where subjects trade in an asset which provides dividends from a known probability distribution. The expected value of the dividends is identical in all experimental treatments. The treatments vary with respect to the volatility of dividends. We find that when dividends are more volatile, transaction prices are lower. We also find that the volatility of prices is lower in the treatment with highly volatile dividends. In addition, as expected, trading volume is lower when cash flows are less volatile.     

Asset Characteristics and Boom and Bust Periods: An Experimental Study

We examine the impact of transaction costs, short selling restrictions and divisibility of assets on market efficiency in experimental asset markets. We find that transaction costs do not exacerbate the inefficiency of the market. They reduce the magnitude of bubbles and push prices closer to fundamentals. More divisible assets exhibit smaller deviations of prices from fundamentals. Short selling restrictions contribute to prolonged bubbles, while relaxing them increases the occurrence of “bust cycles.” We also find that experimental real estate markets display larger deviations of prices from fundamental values, longer boom and bust cycles and smaller turnover than experimental financial markets.