The underpricing of initial public offerings is a well-documented fact of empirical equity market research. Theories explain this underpricing with market imperfections. We study three empirically relevant IPO mechanisms under almost perfect market conditions in the laboratory: a stylized book...

We show that the disposition effect-the tendency of investors to hold losers and sell winners-can be a source of overconfidence. We find experimental evidence that individuals update beliefs about their own investment ability based on realized gains and losses rather than the overall performance...