Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The Formative Years
- Introduction
- 1 An Experimental Study of Competitive Market Behavior
- 2 Effect of Market Organization on Competitive Equilibrium
- 3 Nature, the Experimental Laboratory, and the Credibility of Hypotheses
- 4 Experimental Auction Markets and the Walrasian Hypothesis
- 5 Experimental Studies of Discrimination versus Competition in Sealed-Bid Auction Markets
- 6 Experimental Economics: Induced Value Theory
- 7 Bidding and Auctioning Institutions: Experimental Results
- 8 Intertemporal Competitive Equilibrium: An Empirical Study of Speculation
- 9 Experimental Economics at Purdue
- Part II Institutions and Market Performance
- Part III Public Goods
- Part IV Auctions and Institutional Design
- PART V Industrial Organization
- Part VI Perspectives on Economics
7 - Bidding and Auctioning Institutions: Experimental Results
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The Formative Years
- Introduction
- 1 An Experimental Study of Competitive Market Behavior
- 2 Effect of Market Organization on Competitive Equilibrium
- 3 Nature, the Experimental Laboratory, and the Credibility of Hypotheses
- 4 Experimental Auction Markets and the Walrasian Hypothesis
- 5 Experimental Studies of Discrimination versus Competition in Sealed-Bid Auction Markets
- 6 Experimental Economics: Induced Value Theory
- 7 Bidding and Auctioning Institutions: Experimental Results
- 8 Intertemporal Competitive Equilibrium: An Empirical Study of Speculation
- 9 Experimental Economics at Purdue
- Part II Institutions and Market Performance
- Part III Public Goods
- Part IV Auctions and Institutional Design
- PART V Industrial Organization
- Part VI Perspectives on Economics
Summary
Among the laboratory experimental studies of market price behavior there are numerous experiments designed on the basis of various bidding and auctioning processes of allocation. The theme of this conference will serve as the organizing principle of this paper which presents a summary of several published and previously unpublished experiments in auction and sealed-bid market behavior.
VALUES, INSTITUTIONS AND MARKET STRUCTURE AS TREATMENT VARIABLES
In discussing the use of experimental methods to determine the equilibrium and dynamic properties of market price behavior it is helpful to distinguish three classes of experimental market “treatment” variables:
A. Individual values and their aggregation to form market values. In isolated single-commodity market experiments such values are defined as the individual supply and demand schedules, or simply the aggregate supply and demand conditions that bound price-quantity behavior.
B. The institution of contract. This is defined as the entire set of rules and procedures of an experiment which taken together specify the process whereby individual subjects communicate, exchange information, and form binding contracts.
C. Market structure. This is defined by the number of participants (buyers and sellers) and their relative “power” in the sense of relative demand or supply (cost) capacity.
A complete set of market experiments can be viewed as providing observations on the mapping from values (supply and demand), institutions and market structure into price-quantity outcomes (price levels, price trajectories, quantities exchanged).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Papers in Experimental Economics , pp. 106 - 127Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991
- 10
- Cited by