Economists have lately been called upon not only to analyze markets, but to design them. Market design involves a responsibility for detail, a need to deal with all of a market’s complications, not just its principle features. Designers therefore cannot work only with the simple conceptual models used for theoretical insights into the general working of markets. Instead, market design calls for an engineering approach. Drawing primarily on the design of the entry level labor market for American doctors (the National Resident Matching Program), and of the auctions of radio spectrum conducted by the Federal Communications Commission, this paper makes the case that experimental and computational economics are natural complements to game theory in the work of design. The paper also argues that some of the challenges facing both markets involve dealing with related kinds of complementarities, and that this suggests an agenda for future theoretical research.

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Information Aggregation Mechanisms are economics mechanisms designed explicitly for the purpose of collecting and aggregating information. The modern theory of rational expectations, together with the techniques and results of experimental economics, suggest that a set of properly designed markets can be a good information aggregation mechanism. The paper reports on the deployment of such an Information Aggregation Mechanism inside Hewlett-Packard Corporation for the purpose of making sales forecasts. Results show that IAMs performed better than traditional methods employed inside Hewlett-Packard. The structure of the mechanism, the methodology and the results are reported.

Why do economists conduct experiments? To answer that question, it is first necessary briefly to specify the ingredients of an experiment. Every laboratory experiment is defined by an environment, specifying the initial endowments, preferences and costs that motivate exchange. This environment is controlled using monetary rewards to induce the desired specific value/cost configuration (Smith, 1991, 6). 1 An experiment also uses an institution defining the language (messages) of market communication (bids, offers, acceptances), the rules that govern the exchange of information, and the rules under which messages become binding contracts. This institution is defined by the experimental instructions which describe the messages and procedures of the market, which are most often computer controlled. Finally, there is the observed behavior of the participants in the experiments as a function of the environment and institution that constitute the controlled variables. Using this framework of environment, institution, and behavior, I can think of at least seven prominent reasons in the literature as to why economists conduct experiments. Undoubtedly, there are more (Davis and Holt, 1992, chapter 1 and passim).

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Abslract. The article considers the possibility that asset prices might deviate from intrinsic values based on market fundamentals. Three broad categories of theory are surveyed: (a) growing bubbles (b) fads and (c) information bubbles. 'Sunspot' theories are also discussed. The paper covers both theory and evidence, and directions for future research are discussed.

Auctions of government securities typically permit bidders to enter multiple price-quantity bids. Despite the widespread adoption of this institutional feature and its use by bidders, the motivations behind its use and its e ects on auction outcomes are not well understood theoretically and have been little explored empirically. Using bidding data from treasury bill auctions in Portugal, this paper examines how bidders use multiple bids to hedge against winner's curse. The data show that, ceteris paribus, a bidder submits a greater number of bids and disperses prices on these bids more widely when there is a greater potential for winner's curse. In particular, both these measures of bid-spreading increase with the volatility of market interest rates and the expected number of participating well-informed bidders.

We find clear demographic and ability effects on bidding in common value auction experiments as inexperienced subjects with higher (lower) SAT/ACT scores are less (more) likely to bankrupt than those with middle level scores, inexperienced women suffer far more from the winner’s curse than do men, and economics and business majors substantially overbid relative to other majors. There are strong selection effects in bid estimates for both inexperienced and experienced subjects which, although they are not identified using standard econometric techniques, are identified through our experimental treatment effects. Ignoring these selection effects is most misleading for inexperienced bidders, as the biased estimates indicate much slower learning and adjustment to the winner’s curse for individual bidders than do the unbiased estimates. JEL classification: C9, D44, C24, J16. Key words: common value auction experiments, selection effects, econometric methods, gender and ability effects.

In signalling environments ranging from consumption to education, high-quality senders often shun the standard signals that should separate them from lower-quality senders. We find that allowing for additional, noisy information on sender quality permits equilibria where medium types signal to separate themselves from low types, but high types then choose to not signal, or countersignal. High types not only save costs by relying on the additional information to stochastically separate them from low types, but countersignalling itself is a signal of confidence that separates high types from medium types. Experimental results confirm that subjects can learn to countersignal.