A contest is a situation in which individuals or groups expend costly resources while competing to win a specific prize. The variety of economic situations that can be described as contests has attracted enormous attention from economic theorists. Despite the extensive theoretical research of...

This thesis includes three essays that examine the impact on network externalities (demand side economies of scale) on agent behaviour in markets. Essays 2 and 3 use experimental methodology to test predictions from theory. The fourth essay analyses field data collected from a specific market...

This paper reports a preliminary laboratory experiment in which traders make investments to increase the reliability of tradable instruments that represent greenhouse gas emissions allowances. In one half of the sessions these investments are unobservable, while in the other half traders can...

This thesis examines three unrelated market-based policies. The first topic is the "green marketing" phenomenon, whereby producers attempt to differentiate their products based on environmental quality. "Buying green" has two main beneficial components: the benefit accruing to the individual...

"The Wheel" is a sequential game of perfect information played twice during each taping of the television game show "The Price is Right". This game has simple rules and the stakes are high. We derive the unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (USPNE) for "The Wheel" and test its predictive...

Evidence suggests that a large majority of firms and individuals comply with regulations and tax laws even though the frequency of inspections and audits is often low. Moreover, fines for noncompliance are also typically low when regulatory violations are discovered. These observations are not...