Lecture on the first SFB/TR 15 meeting, Gummersbach, July, 18 - 20, 2004: We develop a general theoretical framework of trade on a platform on which buyers and sellers interact. The platform may be owned by a single large, or many small independent or vertically integrated intermediaries. We...

The work of Friedrich Von Hayek contains several testable predictions about the nature of market processes. Vernon Smith termed the most important one the 'Hayek Hypothesis': equilibrium prices and the gains from trade can be achieved in the presence of diffuse, decentralized information, and in...

In many markets, heterogenous agents make non-contractible investments before bargaining over both who matches with whom and the terms of trade. In static markets, the holdup problem—that is, inefficient investments caused by agents receiving only a fraction of their returns—is ubiquitous....

This paper reports experiments motivated by ongoing controversies regarding tick size in markets. The minimum tick size in a market dictates discrete values at which bids and asks can be tendered by market participants. All transaction prices must occur at these discrete values, which are...

From the set of the first three structural axioms follows the Period Core theorem. It asserts that the product of the key ratios, which characterize the firm, the market outcome, and the income distribution, is always equal to unity.The theorem contains only unit-free variables, is testable in...