Impact of Valuation Ranking Information on Bidding in First-Price Auctions: A Laboratory Study

Landsberger, et al. (2001) have identified optimal bidder behavior in first-price private-value auctions when the ranking of valuations is common knowledge, and derived comparative-statics predictions regarding the auctioneer's expected revenue and the efficiency of the allocation. The experiment reported here tests the behavioral components of these comparative-statics predictions using the dual-market bidding procedure, which permits very powerful tests. The results support the predictions that buyers are inclined to bid more aggressively when they learn they have the low value. Contrary to theory, buyers are inclined to bid less when they learn they have the high value. Once information is revealed, bidders tend to move toward better responses, exploiting new economic opportunities. Consistent with theory, the overall proportion of efficient allocations is lower than in the first-price auction before information is revealed. But as a result of high-value bidders decreasing their bids, the expected revenue does not increase on a regular basis, contrary to the theory's predictions.Asymmetric auctions, laboratory experiments, affiliation and economics of information

Network Structure in a Link-formation Game: An Experimental Study

Network formation is frequently modeled using link-formation games and typically present a multiplicity of Nash equilibria. Cooperative refinements - such as strong or coalitional proof Nash equilibria - have been the standard tool used for equilibrium selection in these games. Non-cooperative refinements derived from the theory of global games have shown also that, for a class of payoff functions, multiplicity of equilibria disappears when the game is perturbed by introducing small amounts of incomplete information. We conducted a laboratory study evaluating the predictive power of each of these refinements in an illustrative link-formation game. Compared with cooperative game solutions, the global game approach did significantly better at predicting the strategies played by individuals in the experiment.Networks, global games, cooperative games, equilibrium selection, experimental economics

Group Decision-Making and Voting in Ultimatum Bargaining: An Experimental Study

Many rent-sharing decisions in a society result from a bargaining process between groups of individuals (such as between the executive and the legislative branches of government, between legislative factions, between corporate management and shareholders, etc.). We conduct a laboratory study of the effect of different voting procedures on group decision-making in the context of ultimatum bargaining. Earlier studies have suggested that when the bargaining game is played by unstructured groups of agents, rather than by individuals, the division of the payoff is substantially affected in favor of the ultimatum-proposers. Our theoretical arguments suggest that one explanation for this could be implicit voting rules within groups. We explicitly structure the group decision-making as voting and study the impact of different voting rules on the bargaining outcome. The observed responder behavior is consistent with preferences depending solely on payoff distribution. Furthermore, we observe that proposers react in an expected manner to changes in voting rule in the responder group.Bargaining games, group decision making and experimental design.

Group Decision-Making in Ultimatum Bargaining: An Experimental Study

Many rent-sharing decisions in a society are result from a bargaining process between groups of individuals (such as between the executive and the legislative branches of government, between legislative factions, between corporate management and shareholders, etc.). The purpose of this work is to conduct a laboratory study of the effect of different voting procedures on group decision-making in the context of ultimatum bargaining. An earlier study (Bornstein and Yaniv, [2]) has suggested that when the bargaining game is played by unstructured groups of agents, rather than by individuals, the division of the payoff is substantially affected in favor of the ultimatum-proposers. Our theoretical arguments suggest that one explanation for this could be implicit voting rules within groups. We propose to explicitly structure the group decision-making as voting and study the impact of different voting rules on the bargaining outcome.Bargaining games, group decision making and experimental design

Group Decision-Making and Voting in Ultimatum Bargaining: An Experimental Study

Many rent-sharing decisions in a society result from a bargaining process between groups of individuals (such as between the executive and the legislative branches of government, between legislative factions, between corporate management and shareholders, etc.). We conduct a laboratory study of the effect of different voting procedures on group decision-making in the context of ultimatum bargaining. Earlier studies have suggested that when the bargaining game is played by unstructured groups of agents, rather than by individuals, the division of the payoff is substantially affected in favor of the ultimatum-proposers. Our theoretical arguments suggest that one explanation for this could be implicit voting rules within groups. We explicitly structure the group decision-making as voting and study the impact of different voting rules on the bargaining outcome. The observed responder behavior is consistent with preferences depending solely on payoff distribution. Furthermore, we observe that proposers react in an expected manner to changes in voting rule in the responder group.Bargaining games, group decision making and experimental design.

A laboratory study of Demand Reduction and Collusion in Uniform- and Discriminatory-Price Auctions

We report results of an experimental study of multi-object uniform and discriminatory-price auctions in an environment of publicly known common values, concentrating on an environment where theory predicts sharply different results of the two auction formats. We find that the bidding behavior in the uniform case exhibits two clear regularities: agents consistently play weakly dominated strategies by overbidding on the first unit and have moderate difficulty coordinating on the high payoff (low auction revenue) equilibrium predicted by theory. However, subjects with experience in the same environment are better at reducing demand to achieve higher payoff. Bidders in discriminatory auctions, as predicted, tend to submit bids close to value for all units and are not generally successful in attempts at collusion.Experimental economics, Second price auctions