This chapter reports the results of experiments that were designed to test the effectiveness of reciprocity as a contract enforcement device. It turns out that reciprocity generates a significant increase in effort levels relative to the prediction based on selfish preferences. Moreover, it...

This chapter reports on two experiments that were designed to test whether efficiency wage theories receive support in the laboratory. The idea is that theories which have no explanatory power even under the controlled circumstances of the laboratory, will not apply to the much more complicated...

This chapter illustrates a mechanism capable of competitively allocating power through an electricity network in which loop flow and the unusual economic phenomenon caused by loop flow are anticipated and integrated into the competitive process. At the base of the complexity is Kirchoff's law...

Theoretically, it is not the case that markets will necessarily equilibrate even when the equilibrium is a unique, interior equilibrium. In his example prices always orbit around the equilibrium and thus never converge. That platform thus provides the starting point of the research. For the...

The experiments reported in this chapter explore the interaction of networks of markets. The issue is whether, and how long, chains of markets separated in time, space and participants might behave. The setting can be interpreted in two different ways. One is a system of vertical markets in...

The fundamental question addressed by this research is the degree to which the classical law of comparative advantage can be observed operating in experimental markets. The law holds that the local economic environments systematically influence, if not completely dictate, patterns of...

The experimental work demonstrates that markets have the capacity to collect information through a process of equilibration and that fact suggests the feasibility of creating a system of markets that have only a purpose of gathering information. The laboratory work suggests that theory and...

First, market prices can exhibit the type of instability predicted by classical dynamic models. Second, the conditions under which instability is observed are not captured by the cobweb model but such conditions are captured by models of the form developed by Marshall and Walras in which the...

The classical discussion of the consequences of non-convexities took a new form as principles of game theory became joined with the structural features of large economies of scale. New models suggest that the threat of competition, as opposed to the existence of an actual competitor, serve to...

The concept of tatonnement evolved to embody a methodology for determining price a price discovery process without disequilibrium trades taking place. It has been viewed as an auctioneer calling out prices, observing behavior and calling out new prices in response to the behavior. The process is...