We report on a series of experiments that examine bidding behavior in first-price sealed bid auctions with symmetric and asymmetric bidders. To study the extent of strategic behavior, we use an experimental design that elicits bidders complete bid functions in each round (auction) of the...

Following extensive empirical evidence about quot;market anomaliesquot; and overconfidence, the analysis of financial markets with agents overconfident about the precision of their private information has received a lot of attention. However, all these models consider agents trading for their...

Following extensive empirical evidence about market anomalies and overconfidence, the analysis of financial markets with agents overconfident about the precision of their private information has received a lot of attention. However, all these models consider agents trading for their own account....

We introduce a form of pre-play communication that we call "preopening". During the preopening, players announce their tentative actions to be played in the underlying game. Announcements are made using a posting system which is subject to stochastic failures. Posted actions are publicly...

The low level of financial literacy across households suggests that they are at risk of making suboptimal financial decisions. In this paper, we analyze the effect of investors’ financial literacy on their decision to demand professional, non-independent advice. We find that non-independent...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of the 2007 Italian severance payment reform on the cost and the access to credit for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach – The authors study the implications of the reform adapting the theoretical...

We study games endowed with a pre-play phase in which players prepare the actions that will be implemented at a predetermined deadline. In the preparation phase, each player stochastically receives opportunities to revise her actions, and the finally-revised action is taken at the deadline. In...

This paper investigates the effect of potential competition on takeovers which we model as a bargaining game with alternating offers where calling an auction represents an outside option for each bidder at each stage of the game. The model describes a takeover process that is initiated by an...