Table of Contents:
  • 1. Introduction and overview. A brief history of experimental economics
  • A sample design for a market experiment
  • Experimental methods: advantages and limitations
  • Types of experiments
  • Some procedural and design considerations
  • Laboratory trading institutions. Appendices: Oral-double auction instructions; Suggestions for conducting and oral-double auction. 2. Decisions and games. Lotteries and expected values
  • A sequential search experiment
  • Expected-utility maximization and risk aversion
  • Game theory, natural form games
  • Extensive forms and backward-induction rationality
  • Decision theory, game theory, and price theory
  • Appendices: Derivation of the reservation wage; Instructions for a sequential search experiment; Constructing a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function; Sequential equilibria; Instructions for the centepede game.
  • 3. Double-auction markets. Double-auction procedures and performance
  • Computers and the double auction
  • Double-auction results: design effects; structural boundaries
  • Multiple, interrelated double-auction markets
  • Double-auction asses markets. 4. Posted-offer markets. Posted-offer procedures and performance
  • Posted offer results: design effects
  • Factors that generate supracompetitive prices
  • Market power
  • Regulation and restraint of monopoly power
  • Appendices: Instructions for a posted-offer auction; Posted-offer instruction for computer implementation; Calculation of a mixed-strategy equilibrium. 5. Bargaining and auctions. Unstructured bargaining without side payments
  • Bargaining over an externality: the Coase theorem
  • Structured bargaining: Ultimatum game experiments; Alternating order experiments
  • Auctions with fixed supply
  • First-price auctions with private values
  • Common-value auctions and the winner's curse
  • Design of new auction institutions
  • Appendices: Equilibrium bidding strategies; Instructions for a bargaining game with asymmetrics; Derivation of the optimal bid in an ultimatum game with value and information asymmetries. 6. Public goods, externalities, and voting. The voluntary-contribution mechanism
  • Results
  • Factors that may alleviate free-riding
  • Incentive-compatible mechanisms
  • Externalities
  • Voting
  • Appendices: A public-goods problem with private information; Instructions, the voluntary contributions mechanism; Incentive-compatibility in the Groves-Ledyard mechanism. 7. Asymmetric information. Quality uncertainty and "lemons" market outcomes
  • Reputation effects
  • Signaling
  • Informational asymmetries in asset markets
  • State uncertainty and insider information
  • The Iowa presidential stock market
  • Appendix: A market experiment with information asymmetrics.
  • 8. Individual decisions in risky situations. Probability-triangle representations
  • Lottery-choice experiments
  • Financial incentives and controls for wealth effects
  • Preference elicitation: problems and applications
  • Preference reversals
  • Inducing risk preferences
  • Information processing: Baye's rules and biases
  • Appendices: Instructions for lottery experiments; Scoring-rule probability; Utility elicitation. 9. Economic behavior and experimental methods: summary and extensions. Major results of experiments to date
  • The relationship among theoretical, experimental, and natural eeconomic environments
  • Experimental design
  • Statistical analysis of data from economics experiments
  • Statistical tests: Single treatment designs; Designs involving two or more treatments
  • Conclusion: toward a more experimental science.