Posted-Offer Markets and Oligopoly Games in Near-Continuous Time: An Experimental Investigation

该奖项将资助研究使用“近连续时间”变体的标准实验室实现张贴报价市场和重复寡头垄断游戏。通过大幅缩短决策周期的持续时间，这个近乎连续的框架允许参与者决策概况的相当大的扩展。以这种方式增加决策档案与自然的报价后市场并非没有相似之处，特别是在跨交易机构进行比较时。例如，许多经济学家根据在双重拍卖交易规则下组织的市场来评估上市后的市场表现。但高价值物品，如股票和其他金融工具，通常在双重拍卖市场进行交易，而价值相对较低的消费品则更频繁地在挂牌交易市场进行交易。为了匹配与单一代表性双拍卖交易相关的美元交易量，许多消费品卖家可能有多次机会重新审视他们的定价决策。更重要的是，这种近乎连续的框架所允许的参与者决策档案的扩展，解决了对后报价市场和寡头垄断实验室结果的普遍批评，即对市场或游戏的经验不足驱动观察到的不均衡行为。PI将进行一系列的四个实验，利用广泛重复所允许的更长的决策档案。它们包括(a)对发布报价市场对潜在供应和/或需求条件变化的反应的一对“程式化事实”的审查；(b)一项旨在检验伯特兰-埃奇沃斯定价博弈中“纯数字”和“市场力量”效应之间相互作用的实验；(c)进一步考察反垄断洛吉特模型的吸引力；(d)一个旨在评估古诺博弈结果长期稳定性的实验。弗农·史密斯（Vernon Smith）认为，开发能够更好地对理论进行实证检验的新工具，可能是科学中最重要的任务。这个奖项将资助一个这样的工具。无论结果如何，提案中描述的四项调查的结果都将是有趣的。从广义上讲，如果近连续的框架消除了“程式化事实”，这些事实已经成为一些经常观察到的实验室偏离竞争和博弈论均衡预测的特征，那么我将开发一个新的平台来评估重复的寡头垄断博弈。另一方面，这些“程式化事实”在一个近乎连续的框架中持续存在，表明至少有一种标准实验室方法的特质并不能驱动这些“事实”，从而进一步支持相关理论未能解释行为的重要方面的论点。实验研究是让感兴趣的本科生参与研究事业的理想途径。本科生将作为助理参与本研究项目。在弗吉尼亚联邦大学（Virginia Commonwealth University）这样的大学里，有才华的本科生参与经济学研究的机会尤其稀少。弗吉尼亚联邦大学是一所种族和民族多元化的开放公立大学，没有经济学博士学位。

This award will fund research using a "near continuous time" variant of the standard laboratory implementations of posted-offer markets and repeated oligopoly games. By truncating sharply the duration of decision periods, this near-continuous framework allows for a very considerable expansion of participant decision-profiles. Increasing decision-profiles in this way is not without some parallels to natural posted-offer markets, particularly when making comparisons across trading institutions. Many economists, forexample, evaluate posted-offer market performance in light of markets organized under double auction trading rules. But high value items, such as stocks and other financial instruments typically trade in double auction markets, while relatively low value consumer goods more frequently trade in posted-offer markets. In order to match the dollar volume associated with a single representative double auction transaction, manyconsumer goods sellers may have multiple opportunities to revisit their pricing decisions. More importantly, the expansion of participant decision profiles allowed by this near-continuous framework addresses the common criticism of posted-offer market and oligopoly laboratory results, that insufficient experience with the market or game drives observed disequilibrium behavior. The PI will conduct a series of four experiments that exploit the longer decision profiles allowed by extensive repetition. They include (a) an examination of a pair of "stylized facts" regarding the response of posted-offer markets to changes in underlying supply and/or demand conditions; (b) an experiment designed to examine interactions between "pure numbers" and "market power" effects in a Bertrand-Edgeworth pricing game; (c) a further examination of the drawing power of Antitrust Logit Model; and (d) an experiment designed to evaluate the long run stability of outcomes in Cournot games.Vernon Smith argues that developing new tools that allow for the better empirical examination of theories represents perhaps the most important task in science. This award will fund one such tool. Results of the four investigations described in the proposal will be interesting, regardless of the outcomes. Broadly speaking, if the near-continuous framework eliminates the "stylized facts" that have come to characterize some frequently observed laboratory deviations from competitive and game-theoretic equilibrium predictions, then I will have developed a new platform for evaluating repeated oligopoly games. On the other hand, the persistence of these "stylized facts" in a near-continuous framework would suggest that at least one idiosyncrasy of standard laboratory methods does not drive these "facts", and would thus provide yet further support for the argument that the pertinent theories fail to explain important aspects of behavior.Experimental research is an ideal way to expose and involve interested undergraduates in the research enterprise. Undergraduate students will participate in this research project as assistants. Exposure of talented undergraduates to the research enterprise in economics is particularly scarce in universities like Virginia Commonwealth University, a racially and ethnically diverse, open access public university without a Ph.D. program in economics.