We conduct a series of Cournot duopoly market experiments with a high number of repetitions and fixed matching. Our treatments include markets with (a) complete cost symmetry and complete information, (b) slight cost asymmetry and complete information, and (c) varying cost asymmetries and...

Matching markets can be unstable when individuals prefer to be matched to a partner who also wants to be matched with them. Through a pre-registered and theory-guided laboratory experiment, we provide evidence that such reciprocal preferences exist, significantly decrease stability in matching...

Agents with reciprocal preferences prefer to be matched to a partner who also likes to collaborate with them. In this paper, we introduce and formalize reciprocal preferences, apply them to matching markets, and analyze the implications for mechanism design. Formally, the preferences of an agent...

We analyse a stylized model of the world grain market characterized by a small oligopoly of traders with market power on both the supply and demand side. Crops are stochastic and exporting countries can impose export tariffs to protect domestic food prices. Our first result is that export...

This paper analyzes consumers' privacy choice concerning their private data and firms' ensuing pricing strategy. The General Data Protection Regulation passed by the European Union in May 2018 allows consumers to decide whether to reveal private information in the form of cookies to an online...

We explore the stability of imitation in a 1,200-period experimental Cournot game where subjects do not know the payoff function but see the output quantities and payoffs of each oligopolist after every period. In line with theoretical predictions and previous experimental findings, our...

We study long-run learning in an experimental Cournot game with no explicit information about the payoff function. Subjects see only the quantities and payoffs of each oligopolist after every period. In line with theoretical predictions and previous experimental findings, duopolies and...

In mechanism design with (partially) verifiable information, the revelation principle holds if allocations are modelled as the Cartesian product of outcomes and verifiable information, giving rise to evidence-contingent mechanisms. Consequently, incentive constraints characterize the...

Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström were awarded the 2016 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for their fundamental contributions to contract theory. This article offers a short summary and discussion of their path breaking work.

This paper studies a principal-agent relation in which the principal's private information about the agent's effort choice is more accurate than a noisy public performance measure. For some contingencies the optimal contract has to specify ex post inefficiencies in the form of inefficient...