This paper formalizes the idea that more hedging instruments may destabilize markets when traders are heterogeneous and adapt their behavior according to experience based reinforcement learning. We investigate three different economic settings, a simple mean-variance asset pricing model, a...

It is no secret that the rational expectations framework has endured what many consider to be a well deserved bashing. From problems, such as, ad hoc specifications of functional forms for utility functions, to adoption of utility functions as units of modeling, to absence of equilibriums that...

Two types of agents have diverse beliefs about the law of motion for an exogenous endowment. One type knows the true law of motion and the other learns about it via Bayes' theorem. Financial market structure affects the dynamics of the distribution of financial wealth. When markets are complete,...

Under limited commitment that prevents agents from pledging their future non-financial wealth, agents with incorrect beliefs always survive by holding on to their non-financial wealth. Friedman (1953)'s market selection hypothesis suggests that their financial wealth trends towards zero in the...

Sufficient conditions for existence of equilibrium are provided for a general equilibrium with incomplete markets problem augmented with unawareness. In this setup agents do not perceive all states of the world, yet are correct in expectations. The First Fundamental Welfare Theorem fails due to...

We study how adverse selection distorts equilibrium investment allocations in a Walrasian credit market with two-sided heterogeneity. Representative investor and partial equilibrium economies are special cases where investment allocations are distorted above perfect information allocations. By...

This paper studies competitive market shutdowns due to adverse selection, where sellers post nonexclusive menus of contracts. We first show that the presence of the worst type of agents (moldy lemons) causes markets to fail only if their mass is sufficiently large. We then show that a small mass...

We present comprehensive evidence in support of giving liquidity equal standing to size, value/growth, and momentum as investment styles, as defined by Sharpe (1992). First, we show that financial market liquidity, as identified by stock turnover, is an economically significant indicator of...

We experimentally investigate how price expectations are formed in a large asset market where subjects' only task is to forecast the future price of a risky asset. The realized prices depend on these expectations. We observe small (6 participants) and large markets (about 100 participants). In...

This experiment compares the price dynamics and bubble formation in an asset market with a price adjustment rule in three treatments where subjects (1) submit a price forecast only, (2) choose quantity to buy/sell and (3) perform both tasks. We find deviation of the market price from the...