Recent evidence suggests that participants' misunderstanding of experimental auction mechanisms can systematically bias auction results. We present a simple technique for testing whether field auction participants fully understand the demand-revealing nature of the auction mechanism and, by...

Firms spend billions of dollars annually on new product and label designs in order to attract and retain customers. The issue of labeling is also important to government agencies and nonprofit labeling organizations. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has an organizational body...

Policymakers are considering including stricter standards in international trade agreements. Using auctions to assess preferences, we find that the median consumer places no premium on fair trade foods produced under more stringent labor and environmental standards. This indicates that current...