Multibidding Game under Uncertainty

This paper considers situations in which a set of agents has to decide whether to carry out a given public project or its alternative when agents hold private information. I propose the use of the individually-rational and budget-balanced multibidding mechanism according to which the game to be played by participants has only one stage and simple rules as defined by Pérez-Castrillo and Wettstein (2002) under complete information. It can be applied in a wide range of situations, and its symmetric Bayes-Nash equilibria deliver ex post efficient outcomes if the number of players is two - for any underlying symmetric distribution characterizing uncertainty - or very large.

Raising "lab rats"

Experimental subjects usually self-select to the laboratory and this may introduce a bias to the derived conclusions. We analyze data stored by a subject-pool management software at an experimental laboratory and speculate about the eect of individual decisions on returning. In particular, we test whether experience and earnings in previous sessions together with demographic variables explain the decision to return to the laboratory. We nd that males and (in monetary terms) well-performing subjects are more likely to participate again in experiments.demographic characteristics, experiments, subject pool

College admissions and the role of information : an experimental study

We analyze two well-known matching mechanisms—the Gale-Shapley, and the Top Trading Cycles (TTC) mechanisms—in the experimental lab in three different informational settings, and study the role of information in individual decision making. Our results suggest that—in line with the theory—in the college admissions model the Gale-Shapley mechanism outperforms the TTC mechanisms in terms of efficiency and stability, and it is as successful as the TTC mechanism regarding the proportion of truthful preference revelation. In addition, we find that information has an important effect on truthful behavior and stability. Nevertheless, regarding efficiency, the Gale-Shapley mechanism is less sensitive to the amount of information participants hold

Subject pool bias in economics experiments

In this paper we consider data from a large number of economic experiments, and look for demographic effects that may be a source of subject pool bias if not carefully accounted for in the subsequent statistical analysis. Our dataset contains information on 2,408 subjects and 597 experimental sessions from 74 experiments recorded over more than 2 years at an experimental laboratory. Using different estimation methods and model specifications, we identify the significant demographic determinants of personal earnings, and find that they account for less than 4% of the observed variation. Thus we deliver empirical evidence supporting the experimental method as monetary incentives, and therefore some kind of strategic behavior, seem to be more important than demographics in the laboratory. Exploiting the timeseries nature of the data we also study some dynamic issues of the subject pool: we analyze the factors that influence subjects’ decisions on returning to the laboratory

Raising "lab rats"

Experimental subjects usually self-select to the laboratory and this may introduce a bias to the derived conclusions. We analyze data stored by a subject-pool management software at an experimental laboratory and speculate about the e ect of individual decisions on returning. In particular, we test whether experience and earnings in previous sessions together with demographic variables explain the decision to return to the laboratory. We nd that males and (in monetary terms) well-performing subjects are more likely to participate again in experiments

Decentralized matching markets with(out) frictions : a laboratory experiment

In a series of laboratory experiments, we explore the impact of different market features (the level of information, search costs, and the level of commitment) on agents’ behaviour and on the outcome of decentralized matching markets. In our experiments, subjects on each side of the market actively search for a partner, make proposals, and are free to accept or reject any proposal received at any time throughout the game. Our results suggest that a low information level boosts market activity but does not affect stability or efficiency of the final outcome, unless coupled with search costs. Search costs have a significant negative impact on market activity, and on both stability and efficiency. Finally, commitment harms stability slightly but acts as a disciplinary device to market activity and is associated with higher efficiency levels of the final outcome.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Decentralized matching markets with(out) frictions : a laboratory experiment

In a series of laboratory experiments, we explore the impact of different market features (the level of information, search costs, and the level of commitment) on agents’ behavior and on the outcome of decentralized matching markets. In our experiments, subjects on each side of the market actively search for a partner, make proposals, and are free to accept or reject any proposal received at any time throughout the game. Our results suggest that a low information level does not affect the stability or the efficiency of the final outcome, although it boosts market activity, unless coupled with search costs. Search costs have a significant negative impact on stability and on market activity. Finally, commitment harms stability slightly but acts as a disciplinary device to market activity and is associated with higher efficiency levels of the final outcome.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Fairness under Uncertainty with Indivisibilities

I analyze an economy with uncertainty in which a set of indivisible objects and a certain amount of money is to be distributed among agents. The set of intertemporally fair social choice functions based on envy-freeness and Pareto efficiency is characterized. I give a necessary and sufficient condition for its non-emptiness and propose a mechanism that implements the set of intertemporally fair allocations in Bayes-Nash equilibrium. Implementation at the ex ante stage is considered, too. I also generalize the existence result obtained with envy-freeness using a broader fairness concept, introducing the aspiration function

On the empirical validity of axioms in unstructured bargaining

We report experimental results and test axiomatic models of unstructured bargaining by checking the empirical relevance of the underlying axioms. Our data support strong efficiency, symmetry, independence of irrelevant alternatives and monotonicity, and reject scale invariance. Individual rationality and midpoint domination are violated by a significant fraction of agreements that implement equal division in highly unequal circumstances. Two well-known bargaining solutions that satisfy the confirmed properties explain the observed agreements reasonably well. The most frequent agreements in our sample are the ones suggested by the equal-division solution. In terms of the average Euclidean distance, the theoretical solution that best explains the data is the deal-me-out solution (Sutton, 1986; Binmore et al., 1989, Binmore et al., 1991). Popular solutions that satisfy scale invariance, individual rationality, and midpoint domination, as the well-known Nash or Kalai-Smorodinsky bargaining solutions, perform poorly in the laboratory