IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/expeco/v26y2023i1d10.1007_s10683-022-09772-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competition with indivisibilities and few traders

Author

Listed:
  • César Martinelli

    (George Mason University)

  • Jianxin Wang

    (Central South University)

  • Weiwei Zheng

    (European University Institute)

Abstract

We study minimal conditions for competitive behavior with few agents. We adapt a price-quantity strategic market game to the indivisible commodity environment commonly used in double auction experiments, and show that all Nash equilibrium outcomes with active trading are competitive if and only if there are at least two buyers and two sellers willing to trade at every competitive price. Unlike previous formulations, this condition can be verified directly by checking the set of competitive equilibria. In laboratory experiments, the condition we provide turns out to be enough to induce competitive results, and the Nash equilibrium appears to be a good approximation for market outcomes. Subjects, although possessing limited information, are able to act as if complete information were available in the market.

Suggested Citation

  • César Martinelli & Jianxin Wang & Weiwei Zheng, 2023. "Competition with indivisibilities and few traders," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(1), pages 78-106, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:expeco:v:26:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10683-022-09772-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10683-022-09772-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10683-022-09772-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10683-022-09772-9?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Camerer, Colin F. & Ho, Teck-Hua, 2015. "Behavioral Game Theory Experiments and Modeling," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    2. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gneezy, Uri, 2000. "Price competition and market concentration: an experimental study," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 7-22, January.
    3. Chapkovski, Philipp & Kujansuu, Essi, 2019. "Real-time interactions in oTree using Django Channels: Auctions and real effort tasks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 114-123.
    4. Benassy, Jean-Pascal, 1986. "On Competitive Market Mechanisms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(1), pages 95-108, January.
    5. Baumol, William J, 1982. "Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-15, March.
    6. Vernon L. Smith, 1962. "An Experimental Study of Competitive Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(3), pages 322-322.
    7. Cason, Timothy N. & Plott, Charles R., 1996. "EPA's New Emissions Trading Mechanism: A Laboratory Evaluation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 133-160, March.
    8. Vernon L. Smith, 1965. "Experimental Auction Markets and the Walrasian Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(4), pages 387-387.
    9. Holt, Charles A & Langan, Loren W & Villamil, Anne P, 1986. "Market Power in Oral Double Auctions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 24(1), pages 107-123, January.
    10. Dubey, Pradeep, 1982. "Price-Quantity Strategic Market Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 111-126, January.
    11. Mas-Colell, Andreu, 1977. "Indivisible commodities and general equilibrium theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 443-456, December.
    12. Timothy N. Cason & Tridib Sharma, 2001. "Durable Goods, Coasian Dynamics, and Uncertainty: Theory and Experiments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(6), pages 1311-1354, December.
    13. Smith, Vernon L, 1982. "Markets as Economizers of Information: Experimental Examination of the "Hayek Hypothesis"," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(2), pages 165-179, April.
    14. Plott, Charles R., 1989. "An updated review of industrial organization: Applications of experimental methods," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 19, pages 1109-1176, Elsevier.
    15. Chen, Daniel L. & Schonger, Martin & Wickens, Chris, 2016. "oTree—An open-source platform for laboratory, online, and field experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 88-97.
    16. Michael Goldstein & Gregory Laughlin & Anthony Aguirre & Joseph Grundfest, 2014. "Information Transmission between Financial Markets in Chicago and New York," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 49(2), pages 283-312, May.
    17. Duffy, John & Matros, Alexander & Temzelides, Ted, 2011. "Competitive behavior in market games: Evidence and theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1437-1463, July.
    18. Friedman, Daniel & Ostroy, Joseph, 1995. "Competitivity in Auction Markets: An Experimental and Theoretical Investigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 22-53, January.
    19. Cason, Timothy N. & Friedman, Daniel, 1996. "Price formation in double auction markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 1307-1337, August.
    20. Brenner, Menachem & Galai, Dan & Sade, Orly, 2009. "Sovereign debt auctions: Uniform or discriminatory?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 267-274, March.
    21. Charles N. Noussair & Charles R. Plott & Raymond G. Riezman, 2013. "An Experimental Investigation of the Patterns of International Trade," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 17, pages 299-328, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    22. Selten, Reinhard, 1991. "Properties of a measure of predictive success," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 153-167, April.
    23. Gode, Dhananjay K & Sunder, Shyam, 1993. "Allocative Efficiency of Markets with Zero-Intelligence Traders: Market as a Partial Substitute for Individual Rationality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(1), pages 119-137, February.
    24. Smith, Vernon L, et al, 1982. "Competitive Market Institutions: Double Auctions vs. Sealed Bid-Offer Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 58-77, March.
    25. McAfee, R. Preston, 1992. "A dominant strategy double auction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 434-450, April.
    26. Vernon L. Smith, 1980. "Relevance of Laboratory Experiments to Testing Resource Allocation Theory," NBER Chapters, in: Evaluation of Econometric Models, pages 345-377, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Duffy, John, 2006. "Agent-Based Models and Human Subject Experiments," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 19, pages 949-1011, Elsevier.
    28. Leo K. Simon, 1984. "Bertrand, the Cournot Paradigm and the Theory of Perfect Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(2), pages 209-230.
    29. Plott, Charles & Roy, Nilanjan & Tong, Baojia, 2013. "Marshall and Walras, disequilibrium trades and the dynamics of equilibration in the continuous double auction market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 190-205.
    30. Coase, Ronald H, 1972. "Durability and Monopoly," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 143-149, April.
    31. Kachelmeier, Steven J. & Shehata, Mohamed, 1992. "Culture and competition: A laboratory market comparison between China and the West," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 145-168, October.
    32. Paul Brewer & Maria Huang & Brad Nelson & Charles Plott, 2002. "On the Behavioral Foundations of the Law of Supply and Demand: Human Convergence and Robot Randomness," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(3), pages 179-208, December.
    33. Porter, Robert H, 1991. "A Review Essay on Handbook of Industrial Organization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 553-572, June.
    34. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Smyth, Andrew, 2018. "Testing the boundaries of the double auction: The effects of complete information and market power," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 372-396.
    35. Douglas D. Davis & Charles A. Holt, 1994. "Market Power and Mergers in Laboratory Markets with Posted Prices," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(3), pages 467-487, Autumn.
    36. Brewer, Paul J., 2008. "Zero-Intelligence Robots and the Double Auction Market: A Graphical Tour," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 31-45, Elsevier.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dolgopolov, Arthur & Houser, Daniel & Martinelli, Cesar & Stratmann, Thomas, 2024. "Assignment markets: Theory and experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    2. Brian Albrecht & Omar Al-Ubaydli & Peter Boettke, 2022. "Testing the Hayek hypothesis: Recent theoretical and experimental evidence," Artefactual Field Experiments 00759, The Field Experiments Website.

    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. Dolgopolov, Arthur & Houser, Daniel & Martinelli, Cesar & Stratmann, Thomas, 2024. "Assignment markets: Theory and experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    2. Itzhak Rasooly, 2022. "Competitive equilibrium and the double auction," Economics Series Working Papers 974, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    3. Itzhak Rasooly, 2022. "Competitive equilibrium and the double auction," Papers 2209.07532, arXiv.org.
    4. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Smyth, Andrew, 2018. "Testing the boundaries of the double auction: The effects of complete information and market power," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 372-396.
    5. Katerina Sherstyuk & Krit Phankitnirundorn & Michael J. Roberts, 2021. "Randomized double auctions: gains from trade, trader roles, and price discovery," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(4), pages 1325-1364, December.
    6. Brewer, Paul & Ratan, Anmol, 2019. "Profitability, efficiency, and inequality in double auction markets with snipers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 486-499.
    7. Ortmann, Andreas, 2003. "Charles R. Plott's collected papers on the experimental foundations of economic and political science," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 555-575, August.
    8. Miller, Ross M., 2008. "Don't let your robots grow up to be traders: Artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and asset-market bubbles," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 153-166, October.
    9. Brian Albrecht & Omar Al-Ubaydli & Peter Boettke, 2022. "Testing the Hayek hypothesis: Recent theoretical and experimental evidence," Artefactual Field Experiments 00759, The Field Experiments Website.
    10. Manahov, Viktor & Urquhart, Andrew, 2021. "The efficiency of Bitcoin: A strongly typed genetic programming approach to smart electronic Bitcoin markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. Charles A. Holt, 2003. "Economic Science: An Experimental Approach for Teaching and Research," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(4), pages 754-771, April.
    12. Ernst Fehr & Armin Falk, 1999. "Wage Rigidity in a Competitive Incomplete Contract Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(1), pages 106-134, February.
    13. Plott, Charles & Roy, Nilanjan & Tong, Baojia, 2013. "Marshall and Walras, disequilibrium trades and the dynamics of equilibration in the continuous double auction market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 190-205.
    14. Jason Shachat & Zhenxuan Zhang, 2017. "The Hayek Hypothesis and Long‐run Competitive Equilibrium: An Experimental Investigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(599), pages 199-228, February.
    15. Martin Barner & Francesco Feri & Charles R. Plott, 2005. "On the microstructure of price determination and information aggregation with sequential and asymmetric information arrival in an experimental asset market," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 73-107, January.
    16. Daniel Friedman & Glen W. Harrison & Jon W. Salmon, 1982. "The Informational Role of Futures Markets and Learning Behavious: Some Experimental Evidence," UCLA Economics Working Papers 248, UCLA Department of Economics.
    17. Ross M. Miller, 2012. "The Effect Of Boundary Conditions On Efficiency And Pricing In Double‐Auction Markets With Zero‐Intelligence Agents," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 179-188, July.
    18. Sean Crockett, 2013. "Price Dynamics In General Equilibrium Experiments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 421-438, July.
    19. Te Bao & Elizaveta Nekrasova & Tibor Neugebauer & Yohanes E. Riyanto, 2022. "Algorithmic trading in experimental markets with human traders: A literature survey," Chapters, in: Sascha Füllbrunn & Ernan Haruvy (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Finance, chapter 23, pages 302-322, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Zhan, Wenjie & Friedman, Daniel, 2007. "Markups in double auction markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 2984-3005, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Market game; Market experiment; Double auction; Perfect competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D41 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Perfect Competition
    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    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:kap:expeco:v:26:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10683-022-09772-9. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.