This paper presents an experiment on a coordination game with extrinsic random signals, in which we systematically vary the stochastic process generating these signals and measure how signals affect behavior. We find that sunspot equilibria emerge naturally if there are salient public signals....

To address the impact of regulation on ethical concerns of consumers, we study the example of minimum wages. In our experimental market, consumers have monopsony power, firms set prices and wages, and workers are passive recipients of a wage payment. We find that the majority of consumers...

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...

We consider a monopolistic certifier selling certification services to a partially privately informed seller. The certifier can enable the seller to disclose her private information publicly, as well as gather additional market information about the good's quality publicly. We show that the...

We document experimentally how biased self-assessments affect the outcome of matching markets. In the experiments, we exogenously manipulate the self-confidence of participants regarding their relative performance by employing hard and easy real-effort tasks. We give participants the option to...

Unfavorable news are often delivered under the disguise of vagueness. Our theory-driven laboratory experiment investigates this strategic use of vagueness in voluntary disclosure and asks whether there is scope for policy to improve information transmission. We find that vagueness is profitably...

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...

We study the relative performance of the first-price sealed-bid auction, the second-price sealed-bid auction, and the all-pay sealed-bid auction in a laboratory experiment where bidders can signal information through their bidding behaviour to an outside observer. We consider two different...

We analyze the optimal allocation of authority in an organization whose members have conflicting preferences. One party has decision-relevant private information, and the party who obtains authority decides in a self-interested way. As a novel element in the literature on decision rights, we...

We analyze a competitive labor market in which workers signal their productivities through education à la Spence (1973), and firms have the option of auditing to learn workers’ productivities. Audits are costly and non–contractible. We characterize the trade–offs between signaling by...