IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jemstr/v23y2014i4p969-1006.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experimental Study of Firm Bounded Rationality and the Pattern of Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Hugh Kelley

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment and simulation with features of a spatially explicit trading environment. Decision makers repeatedly make decisions about firm headquarters, input demands, and export patterns. A goal of this research is to determine if subjects’ management decisions reflect profit maximization, learning, or heuristic decision making. It also considers what impact decision makers’ bounded rationality has on the aggregate pattern of trade. Results indicate that bounded rationality in the form of learning and heuristic decision making are ubiquitous features of subjects’ decisions. This manifests as under‐reaction to trade‐driver stimuli and produces Trefler's missing trade, suggesting a behavioral basis for this anomaly.

Suggested Citation

  • Hugh Kelley, 2014. "Experimental Study of Firm Bounded Rationality and the Pattern of Trade," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 969-1006, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:23:y:2014:i:4:p:969-1006
    DOI: 10.1111/jems.12078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jems.12078
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jems.12078?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alfred A. Kuehn & Michael J. Hamburger, 1963. "A Heuristic Program for Locating Warehouses," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 9(4), pages 643-666, July.
    2. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, April.
    3. Noussair, Charles N & Plott, Charles R & Riezman, Raymond G, 1997. "The Principles of Exchange Rate Determination in an International Financial Experiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(4), pages 822-861, August.
    4. Ashenfelter, Orley, et al, 1992. "An Experimental Comparison of Dispute Rates in Alternative Arbitration Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(6), pages 1407-1433, November.
    5. James R. MARKUSEN, 2021. "Multinationals, Multi-Plant Economies, And The Gains From Trade," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 1, pages 3-24, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Kelley, Hugh & Friedman, Daniel, 2008. "Learning to Forecast Rationally," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 35, pages 303-310, Elsevier.
    7. Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Experimental Economics Results," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 7.
    8. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Reis, Ricardo, 2010. "Imperfect Information and Aggregate Supply," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 5, pages 183-229, Elsevier.
    9. Selten, Reinhard & Abbink, Klaus & Buchta, Joachim & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2003. "How to play (3 x 3)-games.: A strategy method experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 19-37, October.
    10. Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 2011. "How individuals choose health insurance: An experimental analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 799-819, August.
    11. Tibor Besedeš & Cary Deck & Sudipta Sarangi & Mikhael Shor, 2012. "Age Effects and Heuristics in Decision Making," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 580-595, May.
    12. Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Experimental Economics Results," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 4.
    13. Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Experimental Economics Results," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 2.
    14. G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), 1995. "Handbook of International Economics," Handbook of International Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    15. Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Experimental Economics Results," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    16. Caballero, Ricardo J, 1995. "Near-Rationality, Heterogeneity, and Aggregate Consumption," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 29-48, February.
    17. Trefler, Daniel, 1995. "The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1029-1046, December.
    18. Alan P. Kirman, 1992. "Whom or What Does the Representative Individual Represent?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 117-136, Spring.
    19. Gary Bornstein & Ilan Yaniv, 1998. "Individual and Group Behavior in the Ultimatum Game: Are Groups More “Rational” Players?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 101-108, June.
    20. Hugh Kelley & Daniel Friedman, 2002. "Learning to Forecast Price," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 556-573, October.
    21. David Hummels & James Levinsohn, 1995. "Monopolistic Competition and International Trade: Reconsidering the Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 799-836.
    22. Akerlof, George A & Yellen, Janet L, 1985. "Can Small Deviations from Rationality Make Significant Differences to Economic Equilibria?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 708-720, September.
    23. Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Experimental Economics Results," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 3.
    24. George A. Akerlof, 2007. "The Missing Motivation in Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 5-36, March.
    25. Krusell, Per & Smith, Anthony Jr., 1996. "Rules of thumb in macroeconomic equilibrium A quantitative analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 527-558, April.
    26. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:2:p:673-699 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Blinder, Alan S & Morgan, John, 2005. "Are Two Heads Better than One? Monetary Policy by Committee," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(5), pages 789-811, October.
    28. Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Experimental Economics Results," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 8.
    29. Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Experimental Economics Results," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 5.
    30. S. Rajagopalan, 2002. "Make to Order or Make to Stock: Model and Application," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(2), pages 241-256, February.
    31. Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Experimental Economics Results," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 6.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tamar Kugler & Edgar E. Kausel & Martin G. Kocher, 2012. "Are Groups more Rational than Individuals? A Review of Interactive Decision Making in Groups," CESifo Working Paper Series 3701, CESifo.
    2. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    3. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    4. Pfajfar, Damjan & Žakelj, Blaž, 2018. "Inflation Expectations And Monetary Policy Design: Evidence From The Laboratory," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 1035-1075, June.
    5. Pfajfar, Damjan & Žakelj, Blaž, 2014. "Experimental evidence on inflation expectation formation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 147-168.
    6. Marie-Pierre Dargnies, 2012. "Men Too Sometimes Shy Away from Competition: The Case of Team Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(11), pages 1982-2000, November.
    7. Di Guida, Sibilla & Han, The Anh & Kirchsteiger, Georg & Lenaerts, Tom & Zisis, Ioannis, 2020. "Endogenous Group Formation and its impact on Cooperation and Surplus Allocation - An Experimental Analysis," Discussion Papers on Economics 8/2020, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    8. Sean Crockett, 2013. "Price Dynamics In General Equilibrium Experiments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 421-438, July.
    9. Tobias Salz & Emanuel Vespa, 2020. "Estimating dynamic games of oligopolistic competition: an experimental investigation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(2), pages 447-469, June.
    10. Ambrus, Attila & Pathak, Parag A., 2011. "Cooperation over finite horizons: A theory and experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 500-512.
    11. Thieme, Lutz & Winkelhake, Olaf & Hartmann, Ulrich, 2014. "Fairness als universelle Norm? Empirische Evidenz ohne Manna [Fairness as a universal norm? Empiric evidence without manna]," Working Papers of the European Institute for Socioeconomics 12, European Institute for Socioeconomics (EIS), Saarbrücken.
    12. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    13. Blair Cleave & Nikos Nikiforakis & Robert Slonim, 2013. "Is there selection bias in laboratory experiments? The case of social and risk preferences," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 372-382, September.
    14. Pierre-Olivier Pineau, 2022. "Choosing to Pay More for Electricity: an experiment on the level of residential consumer cooperation," CIRANO Working Papers 2022s-18, CIRANO.
    15. Jason Shachat & Anand Srinivasan, 2022. "Informational Price Cascades and Non-Aggregation of Asymmetric Information in Experimental Asset Markets," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 388-407, November.
    16. Ciril Bosch-Rosa & Thomas Meissner & Antoni Bosch-Domènech, 2018. "Cognitive bubbles," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 132-153, March.
    17. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    18. Péter Elek & János Köllő, 2019. "Eliciting permanent and transitory undeclared work from matched administrative and survey data," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 547-576, August.
    19. Mutlu, Asli & Roy, Debraj & Filatova, Tatiana, 2023. "Capitalized value of evolving flood risks discount and nature-based solution premiums on property prices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    20. Kim, Younjun, 2015. "Essays on firm location decisions, regional development and choices under risk," ISU General Staff Papers 201501010800005579, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:23:y:2014:i:4:p:969-1006. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/journals/JEMS/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.