This second collection of papers by Vernon L. Smith, a creator of the field of experimental economics, includes many of his primary authored and coauthored contributions on bargaining and market behavior between 1990 and 1998. The essays explore the use of laboratory experiments to test propositions derived from economics and game theory. They also investigate the relationship between experimental economics and psychology, particularly the field of evolutionary psychology, using the latter to broaden the perspective in which experimental results are interpreted. Specific themes investigated...

Vernon L. Smith is the main creator of the burgeoning discipline of experimental economics. This collection of his papers from 1962 to 1988 surveys major developments in the field from early attempts to simulate economic behavior in now classic double oral auction markets through recent studies of industrial organization and decision making. Topics covered include monopoly and oligopoly supply and demand theory under posted pricing, uniform pricing, double continuous auction, and sealed bid-offer auction; hypothetical valuation and market pricing; asset price bubbles; predatory pricing;...

Vernon L. Smith is the main creator of the burgeoning discipline of experimental economics. This collection of his papers from 1962 to 1988 surveys major developments in the field from early attempts to simulate economic behavior in now classic double oral auction markets through recent studies of industrial organization and decision making. Topics covered include monopoly and oligopoly supply and demand theory under posted pricing, uniform pricing, double continuous auction, and sealed bid-offer auction; hypothetical valuation and market pricing; asset price bubbles; predatory pricing;...

This second collection of papers by Vernon L. Smith, a creator of the field of experimental economics, includes many of his primary authored and coauthored contributions on bargaining and market behavior between 1990 and 1998. The essays explore the use of laboratory experiments to test propositions derived from economics and game theory. They also investigate the relationship between experimental economics and psychology, particularly the field of evolutionary psychology, using the latter to broaden the perspective in which experimental results are interpreted. Specific themes investigated...

The principal findings of experimental economics are that impersonal exchange in markets converges in repeated interaction to the equilibrium states implied by economic theory, under information conditions far weaker than specified in the theory. In personal, social, and economic exchange, as studied in two-person games, cooperation exceeds the prediction of traditional game theory. This book relates these two findings to field studies and applications and integrates them with the main themes of the Scottish Enlightenment and with the thoughts of F. A. Hayek.

Developing a unified theory of production and investment, Vernon L. Smith explores the empirical and theoretical nature of the interdependence between "short-run" current account production decisions and "long-run" investment planning, taking into account such technological factors as equipment replacement. The book builds an explicit theory of production planning by integrating production, investment, and equipment replacement policy, derives the decision implications of the use of durable capital goods, and examines the production function concept and the production decision process in...

This collection of essays explores the most relevant developments at the interface of economics and psychology, giving special attention to models of irrational behavior, and draws the relevant implications of such models for the design of legal rules and institutions. The application of economic models of irrational behavior to law is especially challenging because specific departures from rational behavior differ markedly from one another. Furthermore, the analytical and deductive instruments of economic theory have to be reshaped to deal with the fragmented and heterogeneous findings of...

The principal findings of experimental economics are that impersonal exchange in markets converges in repeated interaction to the equilibrium states implied by economic theory, under information conditions far weaker than specified in the theory. In personal, social, and economic exchange, as studied in two-person games, cooperation exceeds the prediction of traditional game theory. This book relates these two findings to field studies and applications and integrates them with the main themes of the Scottish Enlightenment and with the thoughts of F. A. Hayek.

Balance sheet crises, in which the prices of widely held and highly leveraged assets collapse, pose distinctive economic challenges. An understanding of their causes and consequences is only recently developing, and there is no agreement on effective policy responses. From backgrounds in experimental economics, Steven Gjerstad and Nobel laureate Vernon L. Smith examine events that led to and resulted from the recent U.S. housing bubble and collapse, as a case study in the formation and propagation of balance sheet crises. They then examine all previous downturns in the U.S. economy, including...