This paper studies uniqueness of equilibrium in symmetric 2 x 2 bayesian games.  It shows that if signals are highly but not perfectly dependent then players play their risk-dominant actions for all but a vanishing set of signal realizations.  In contrast to the global games literature, noise...

This paper contains a review of the burgeoning research that has been designed to shed light on how the art auction system actually works and what it indicates about price formation. First, we find that in recent years returns on art assets appear to be little different from returns on other...

The Sotheby`s/Christie`s price-fixing scandal that ended in the public trial of Alfred Taubman provides a unique window on a number of key economic and antitrust policy issues related to the use of the auction system. The trial provided detailed evidence as to how the price fixing worked, and...

This paper tests for reference dependence, using data from Impressionist and Contemporary Art auctions. We distinguish reference dependence based on rule of thumb learning from reference dependence based on rational learning. Furthermore, we distinguish pure reference dependence from effects due...

This paper presents an empirical study of paintings that have failed to meet their reserve price at auction. In the art trade it is often claimed that when an advertised item goes unsold at auction, its future value will be affected. We have constructed a new dataset specifically for the purpose...

We present experimental evidence which sheds new light on why women may be less competitive than men.  Specifically, we observe striking differences in how men and women respond to good and bad luck in a competitive environment.  Following a loss, women tend to reduce effort, and the effect is...

We use an online real-effort experiment to investigate how bonus-based pay and worker productivity interact with workplace cheating.  Firms often use bonus-based compensation plans, such as group bonuses and firm-wide profit sharing, that induce considerable uncertainty in how much workers are...

In this note, we present a novel computerized real effort task based on moving sliders across a screen which overcomes many of the drawbacks of existing real effort tasks.  The task was first developed and used by us in Gill and Prowse (2009).  We outline the design of our "slider task",...

We develop a novel computerized real effort task, based on moving sliders across a screen, to test experimentally whether agents are disappointment averse when they compete in a real effort sequential-move tournament.  Our theory predicts that a disappointment averse agent, who is loss averse...

This paper defines regular and weakly regular equilibria for monotone Bayesian games with one-dimensional actions and types.  It proves an index theorem and provides applications to uniqueness of equilibrium.  It also provides analyses of stability with respect to perturbations and dynamic...