Markets, Games, & Strategic Behavior

by Holt, Charles A.

• ISBN13: 9780321419316
• ISBN10: 0321419316
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

Students become fluent in economics when they can apply the concepts in a real, decision-making and strategic environment. For this reason, an increasing number of professors are incorporating experiments into their undergraduate courses. In his new text, Charles Holt begins each chapter with a lead-off experiment designed as an organizing device to introduce economic concepts such as the Winner's Curse, Asset Market Bubbles, and Rent Seeking. These experiments are easy to facilitate in the classroom, and may be run "by hand" or online via an internet browser.

Table of Contents

Basic Concepts: Decisions, Game Theory, and Market Equilibrium	p. 1
Introduction	p. 3
Origins	p. 3
Overview	p. 5
Methodology	p. 8
A Brief History of Experimental Economics	p. 16
Questions	p. 18
A Pit Market	p. 21
A Simple Example	p. 21
A Classroom Experiment	p. 22
Chamberlin's Results and Vernon Smith's Reaction	p. 27
Extensions	p. 31
Questions	p. 32
Some Simple Games: Competition, Coordination, and Guessing	p. 35
Game Theory and the Prisoner's Dilemma	p. 35
A Prisoner's Dilemma Experiment	p. 37
A Coordination Game	p. 40
A Guessing Game	p. 42
Extensions	p. 44
Questions	p. 45
Risk and Decision Making	p. 47
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?	p. 47
A Simple Lottery-Choice Experiment	p. 50
Payoff Scale, Order, and Demographics Effects	p. 54
Extensions	p. 58
Questions	p. 58
Randomized Strategies	p. 59
Symmetric Matching Pennies Games	p. 59
Battle of the Sexes	p. 63
Extensions	p. 67
Questions	p. 67
Market Experiments	p. 69
Monopoly and Cournot Markets	p. 71
Monopoly	p. 71
Cournot Duopoly	p. 75
Cournot Oligopoly	p. 77
Extensions	p. 80
Optional Quick Calculus Review	p. 80
Questions	p. 81
Vertical Market Relationships	p. 83
Double Marginalization	p. 83
The Newsvendor Problem	p. 87
The Bullwhip Effect	p. 90
Extensions	p. 92
Questions	p. 93
Market Institutions and Power	p. 95
Introduction	p. 95
The Exercise of Seller Market Power without Explicit Collusion	p. 99
Edgeworth Cycles and Random Prices	p. 102
The Effects of Market Power	p. 103
Extensions	p. 107
Calculation of a Mixed-Strategy Equilibrium in Prices	p. 107
Questions	p. 109
Collusion and Price Competition	p. 111
Collusion in Posted-Offer Markets: "This Is Economics"	p. 111
Collusion with Secret Discounts	p. 114
Extensions: Cheap Talk, Mutual Forbearance, and the "V Word"	p. 117
Questions	p. 120
Market Failure Due to Unraveling: Lemons and Matching Markets	p. 123
Endogenous Product Quality	p. 123
Clearinghouse Mechanisms and Unraveling in Labor Markets	p. 127
Extensions: Baseball, Dorm Rooms, School Choice, Deep Space, Sorority Rush,...but Marriage?	p. 131
Questions	p. 131
Asset Markets and Price Bubbles	p. 133
Bubbles and Crashes	p. 133
A Digression on Present Value	p. 137
The Limit Order Market Experiment	p. 138
Other Research on the Call Market Institution	p. 141
Questions	p. 143
Bargaining and Behavioral Labor Economics	p. 145
Ultimatum Bargaining	p. 147
Strategic Advantage and Ultimatums	p. 147
Bargaining in the Bush	p. 148
Bargaining in the Lab	p. 151
Multi-Stage Bargaining	p. 153
Extensions: "I Will Be Spending Years Trying to Figure Out What This All Meant"	p. 156
Questions	p. 157
Trust, Reciprocity, and Principal-Agent Games	p. 159
The Trust Game	p. 159
A Labor Market Reciprocity Game	p. 162
Extensions: Field Experiments	p. 164
Questions	p. 165
Public Choice	p. 167
Voluntary Contributions	p. 169
Social Norms and Public Goods	p. 169
"Economists Free-Ride, Does Anyone Else?"	p. 171
Single-Round Experiments	p. 172
Multi-Round Experiments	p. 176
Extensions	p. 178
Questions	p. 180
The Volunteer's Dilemma	p. 183
Sometimes It Only Takes One Hero	p. 183
Initial Experimental Evidence	p. 184
The Mixed-Strategy Equilibrium	p. 186
An Experiment on Group Size Effects	p. 189
Extensions	p. 191
Questions	p. 191
Externalities, Congestion, and Common Pool Resources	p. 193
Water	p. 194
Ducks and Traffic	p. 195
Fish	p. 200
Extensions	p. 202
Questions	p. 203
Rent Seeking	p. 205
Government with "a Smokestack on Its Back"	p. 205
Rent Seeking in the Classroom Laboratory	p. 207
The Nash Equilibrium	p. 208
Comparative Statics for Changes in Cost and the Number of Competitors	p. 209
Extensions	p. 210
Questions	p. 212
Voting and Politics Experiments	p. 215
The Median Voter Theorem	p. 215
Experimental Tests of Spatial Voting Models	p. 217
Fairness and Deviations from Core Outcomes	p. 220
Legislative Bargaining	p. 221
Agendas and Strategic Voting	p. 222
Polls, Runoffs, and Other Coordinating Devices	p. 224
Participation Games	p. 225
Field Experiments	p. 227
Extensions	p. 228
Questions	p. 229
Auctions	p. 231
Private Value Auctions	p. 233
Introduction	p. 233
Auctions: Up, Down, and the "Little Magical Elf"	p. 234
Bidding against a Uniform Distribution	p. 237
Bidding Behavior in a Two-Person, First-Price Auction	p. 240
Extensions	p. 242
Risk Aversion	p. 244
Questions	p. 246
The Takeover Game	p. 247
Wall Street (the Film)	p. 247
A Takeover Game Experiment	p. 248
Quality Unraveling	p. 250
Extensions: The Loser's Curse	p. 252
Questions	p. 252
Common-Value Auctions and the Winner's Curse	p. 255
"I Won the Auction but I Wish I Hadn't"	p. 255
The Nash Equilibrium	p. 258
The Winner's Curse	p. 261
Extensions	p. 262
Questions	p. 263
Multi-Unit and Combinatorial Auctions	p. 265
Dry 2K	p. 265
FCC Bandwidth Auctions and Package Bidding Alternatives	p. 272
Experimental Tests of Package Bidding Alternatives	p. 276
Extensions	p. 278
Questions	p. 279
Behavioral Game Theory: Treasures and Intuitive Contradictions	p. 281
Multi-Stage Games	p. 285
Extensive Forms and Strategies	p. 285
Two-Stage Trust Games	p. 288
The Centipede Game	p. 291
Extensions	p. 292
Questions	p. 293
Generalized Matching Pennies	p. 295
The Case of Balanced Payoffs	p. 295
Noisy Best Responses	p. 296
The Effects of Payoff Imbalances	p. 299
Probabilistic Choice	p. 302
Extensions	p. 304
Questions	p. 305
The Traveler's Dilemma	p. 307
A Vacation with an Unhappy Ending?	p. 307
Data	p. 309
Learning and Experience	p. 310
Iterated Rationality and Quantal Response Equilibrium	p. 312
Extensions	p. 316
Bounded Rationality in the Traveler's Dilemma-A Spreadsheet-Based Analysis	p. 318
Questions	p. 323
Coordination Games	p. 325
"The Minimum Effort Game? That's One I Can Play!"	p. 325
Nash Equilibria, Numbers Effects, and Experimental Evidence	p. 328
Effort-Cost Effects	p. 329
Equilibrium with Noisy Behavior	p. 331
Extensions	p. 333
An Analysis of Noisy Behavior in the Coordination Game	p. 334
Questions	p. 337
Individual Decision Experiments	p. 339
Probability Matching	p. 341
Being Treated Like a Rat	p. 341
Are Rats Really More Rational Than Humans?	p. 342
Siegel and Goldstein's Experiments	p. 343
A Simple Model of Belief Learning	p. 345
Reinforcement Learning	p. 346
Extensions	p. 347
Questions	p. 348
Lottery Choice Anomalies	p. 351
Introduction	p. 351
The Allais Paradox	p. 352
Prospect Theory: Probability Misperception	p. 354
Prospect Theory: Gains, Losses, and "Reflection Effects"	p. 356
Extensions	p. 359
Questions	p. 360
ISO (in Search of...)	p. 361
Introduction	p. 361
Search from a Uniform Distribution	p. 362
Experimental Data	p. 363
Optimal Search	p. 364
Extensions	p. 366
Questions	p. 367
Information, Learning, and Signaling	p. 369
Bayes' Rule	p. 371
Introduction	p. 371
A Simple Example and a Counting Heuristic	p. 373
Relating the Counting Heuristic to Bayes' Rule	p. 376
Experimental Results	p. 378
Bayes' Rule with Elicited Probabilities	p. 379
A Follow-Up Experiment with a Rare Event	p. 382
Extensions	p. 383
Truthful Elicitation	p. 384
Questions	p. 385
Information Cascades	p. 389
"To Do Exactly as Your Neighbors Do Is the Only Sensible Rule"	p. 389
A Model of Rational Learning from Others' Decisions	p. 390
Experimental Evidence	p. 392
Extensions	p. 395
Questions	p. 396
Statistical Discrimination	p. 397
"Brown-Eyed People Are More Civilized"	p. 397
Being Purple or Green	p. 399
Data on Statistical Discrimination	p. 401
"Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"	p. 405
Extensions	p. 406
Derivation of the Discriminatory Equilibrium	p. 407
Questions	p. 408
Signaling Games	p. 409
Real Men Don't Eat Quiche	p. 409
Separating Equilibria	p. 410
Pooling	p. 412
Unintuitive Beliefs and Reverse Type Dependence	p. 413
"Stripped Down Poker"	p. 416
Extensions: "Too Cool for School"	p. 419
Questions	p. 420
Prediction Markets	p. 423
The Rationale for Prediction Markets	p. 423
The Success of Political Event Markets	p. 426
Information Aggregation and "Common Value Trading"	p. 428
Extensions	p. 431
Questions	p. 431
References	p. 433
Index	p. 451
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