Experimental Investigations of Laboratory Markets Under Conditions of Substantially Increased Time Frame, Scope and Scale

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9730176 Plott This project explores the properties of experimental markets that operate on a time frame, scope and scale substantially beyond market systems that have been studied to date. Advances in technology, coupled with significant scientific progress, have made possible the implementation and control of laboratory experiments that could not be imagined a few years ago. The number of markets will be increased from the two or three market maximum, typical of current studies, to dozens of markets. The time devoted to an experiment will be increased from two or three hours to days and possibly weeks. The number of subjects will be increased from the dozen or so typical of current laboratory experiments to several hundred. The purposed research removes constraints, opens new economic phenomena for study by laboratory experimental methods, develops new methodology and enhances the relevance of laboratory experimental results for applied purposes. The first phase of research involves the creation of large scale/scope experiments that incorporate critical aspects of well researched, small scale experiments. While the purposed large scale experiments are substantially new, the links to previous work will make them "anchors" than can be used for orientation in a variety of different experiments in large environments. This phase concentrates on three areas of laboratory experimentation of interest in their own right: single market equilibration, information aggregation and multiple market (general equilibrium) systems. The second phase depends importantly on the first phase. Completely new research topics and variables will be addressed, once some of the possible influences of limited time, scope and scale are better understood and the anchor experiments have been established. Both classical theory and applied theory involve the interaction of multiple markets, interdependencies and multiple organizations. However, experimentation on such topics has been limited because appropriate environments could not have been created. This next phase creates them. Some of the specific topics to be explored are: multiple moneys and general equilibrium; price controls; information aggregation; local non-convexities in general equilibrium experiments; networked systems and smart markets; and competing organizations. ??