We devise an experiment to explore the effect of different degrees of competition on optimal contracts in a hidden-information context. In our benchmark case, each principal is matched with one agent of unknown type. In our second treatment, a principal can select one of three agents, while in a...

We study the effects of competition in a context in which people's actions can not be contractually fixed. We find that in such an environment the very presence of competition does neither increase efficiency nor does it yield any payoff gains for the short side of the market. We also find that...

In the context of supply function competition with private information, we test in the laboratory whether - as predicted in Bayesian equilibrium - costs that are positively correlated lead to steeper supply functions and less competitive outcomes than do uncorrelated costs. We find that the...