IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/syd/wpaper/2123-8368.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

To See Is To Believe: Common Expectations In Experimental Asset Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Cheung, Stephen L.
  • Hedegaard, Morten
  • Palan, Stefan

Abstract

We experimentally manipulate agents' information regarding the rationality of others in a setting in which previous studies have found irrationality to be present, namely the asset market experiments introduced by Smith, Suchanek, and Williams (Econometrica, 1988). Recent studies suggest that mispricing in such markets may be an artefact of confusion, which can be reduced by training subjects to understand the diminishing fundamental value. We reconsider this view, and argue that when it is made public knowledge that training has occurred, this may also reduce uncertainty over the behavior of others and facilitate the formation of common expectations. Our design disentangles the direct effect of training from the indirect e_ect of its public knowledge, and our results indicate a distinct effect of public knowledge over and above that of training alone

Suggested Citation

  • Cheung, Stephen L. & Hedegaard, Morten & Palan, Stefan, 2012. "To See Is To Believe: Common Expectations In Experimental Asset Markets," Working Papers 2012-10, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:syd:wpaper:2123/8368
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ-wpseries.com/2012/201210.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eizo Akiyama & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Ryuichiro Ishikawa, 2017. "It is Not Just Confusion! Strategic Uncertainty in An Experimental Asset Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 563-580, October.
    2. Lei, Vivian & Noussair, Charles N & Plott, Charles R, 2001. "Nonspeculative Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets: Lack of Common Knowledge of Rationality vs. Actual Irrationality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 831-859, July.
    3. Stephen Cheung & Stefan Palan, 2012. "Two heads are less bubbly than one: team decision-making in an experimental asset market," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(3), pages 373-397, September.
    4. van Rooij, Maarten & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob, 2011. "Financial literacy and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 449-472, August.
    5. Kocher, Martin G. & Sutter, Matthias, 2006. "Time is money--Time pressure, incentives, and the quality of decision-making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 375-392, November.
    6. Cheung, Stephen L. & Coleman, Andrew, 2011. "League-Table Incentives and Price Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 5704, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Mark van Boening & Vernon L. Smith & Charissa P. Wellford, 2000. "Dividend timing and behavior in laboratory asset markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 16(3), pages 567-583.
    8. McKelvey, Richard D & Palfrey, Thomas R, 1992. "An Experimental Study of the Centipede Game," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(4), pages 803-836, July.
    9. 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.
    10. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Oscar Volij, 2009. "Field Centipedes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1619-1635, September.
    11. 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.
    12. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    13. Porter, David & Smith, Vernon L., 2008. "Price Bubbles," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 30, pages 247-255, Elsevier.
    14. Ernan Haruvy & Yaron Lahav & Charles N. Noussair, 2007. "Traders' Expectations in Asset Markets: Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1901-1920, December.
    15. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    16. Smith, Vernon L., 2010. "Theory and experiment: What are the questions?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 3-15, January.
    17. Charles Noussair & Steven Tucker, 2006. "Futures Markets And Bubble Formation In Experimental Asset Markets," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), pages 167-184, June.
    18. Ernst Fehr & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2001. "Does Money Illusion Matter?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1239-1262, December.
    19. Porter, David P & Smith, Vernon L, 1995. "Futures Contracting and Dividend Uncertainty in Experimental Asset Markets," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(4), pages 509-541, October.
    20. Wei Xiong & Jialin Yu, 2011. "The Chinese Warrants Bubble," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2723-2753, October.
    21. Michael Kirchler & Jurgen Huber & Thomas Stockl, 2012. "Thar She Bursts: Reducing Confusion Reduces Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 865-883, April.
    22. Reshmaan N. Hussam & David Porter & Vernon L. Smith, 2008. "Thar She Blows: Can Bubbles Be Rekindled with Experienced Subjects?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 924-937, June.
    23. Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler, 2012. "The impact of instructions and procedure on reducing confusion and bubbles in experimental asset markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 89-105, March.
    24. 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.
    25. Stefan Palan, 2013. "A Review Of Bubbles And Crashes In Experimental Asset Markets," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 570-588, July.
    26. Vivian Lei & Filip Vesely, 2009. "Market Efficiency: Evidence From A No-Bubble Asset Market Experiment," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 246-258, May.
    27. R. Mark Isaac & Duncan James, 2000. "Asset Markets: How They Are Affected by Tournament Incentives for Individuals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 995-1004, September.
    28. Martin Dufwenberg & Tobias Lindqvist & Evan Moore, 2005. "Bubbles and Experience: An Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1731-1737, December.
    29. Noussair, C. & Robin, S. & Ruffieux, B., 1998. "Bubbles and Anti-Crashes in Laboratory Asset Markets with Constant Fundamental Values," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1119, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    30. Ronald R. King, 1991. "Private Information Acquisition In Experimental Markets Prone To Bubble And Crash," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 14(3), pages 197-206, September.
    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 7.
    32. Ernan Haruvy & Charles N. Noussair, 2006. "The Effect of Short Selling on Bubbles and Crashes in Experimental Spot Asset Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1119-1157, June.
    33. 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.
    34. Oechssler, Jörg, 2010. "Searching beyond the lamppost: Let's focus on economically relevant questions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 65-67, January.
    35. Smith, Vernon L & Suchanek, Gerry L & Williams, Arlington W, 1988. "Bubbles, Crashes, and Endogenous Expectations in Experimental Spot Asset Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1119-1151, September.
    36. Wei Xiong & Jialin Yu, 2011. "The Chinese Warrants Bubble," Working Papers 1398, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program..
    37. Thomas Stöckl & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler, 2010. "Bubble measures in experimental asset markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(3), pages 284-298, September.
    38. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    39. Charles Noussair & Stephane Robin & Bernard Ruffieux, 2001. "Price Bubbles in Laboratory Asset Markets with Constant Fundamental Values," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(1), pages 87-105, June.
    40. 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.
    41. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    42. 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.
    43. 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.
    44. Van Boening, Mark V. & Williams, Arlington W. & LaMaster, Shawn, 1993. "Price bubbles and crashes in experimental call markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 179-185.
    45. Johannes Kaiser, 2007. "An exact and a Monte Carlo proposal to the Fisher–Pitman permutation tests for paired replicates and for independent samples," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(3), pages 402-412, September.
    46. Johannes Kaiser & Michael G. Lacy, 2009. "A general-purpose method for two-group randomization tests," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(1), pages 70-85, March.
    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. Shestakova, Natalia & Powell, Owen & Gladyrev, Dmitry, 2019. "Bubbles, experience and success," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 206-213.
    2. Ciril Bosch-Rosa & Thomas Meissner & Antoni Bosch-Domènech, 2018. "Cognitive bubbles," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 132-153, March.
    3. Hubert J. Kiss & Laszlo A. Koczy & Agnes Pinter & Balazs R. Sziklai, 2019. "Does risk sorting explain bubbles?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1905, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    4. Kiss, Hubert J. & Kóczy, László Á. & Pintér, Ágnes & Sziklai, Balázs R., 2022. "Does risk sorting explain overpricing in experimental asset markets?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    5. Michael Kirchler & Jurgen Huber & Thomas Stockl, 2012. "Thar She Bursts: Reducing Confusion Reduces Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 865-883, April.
    6. Anthony Newell & Lionel Page, 2017. "Countercyclical risk aversion and self-reinforcing feedback loops in experimental asset markets," QuBE Working Papers 050, QUT Business School.
    7. Bousselmi, Wael & Sentis, Patrick & Willinger, Marc, 2019. "How do markets react to (un)expected fundamental value shocks? An experimental analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 90-113.
    8. Stephen L. Cheung & Andrew Coleman, 2014. "Relative Performance Incentives and Price Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(2), pages 345-363, October.
    9. Giovanni Giusti & Janet Hua Jiang & Yiping Xu, 2014. "Interest on Cash, Fundamental Value Process and Bubble Formation on Experimental Asset Markets," Staff Working Papers 14-18, Bank of Canada.
    10. Eizo Akiyama & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Ryuichiro Ishikawa, 2017. "It is Not Just Confusion! Strategic Uncertainty in An Experimental Asset Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 563-580, October.
    11. Thomas Stöckl & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler, 2015. "Multi-period experimental asset markets with distinct fundamental value regimes," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 314-334, June.
    12. Baghestanian, S. & Lugovskyy, V. & Puzzello, D., 2015. "Traders’ heterogeneity and bubble-crash patterns in experimental asset markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 82-101.
    13. Razen, Michael & Huber, Jürgen & Kirchler, Michael, 2017. "Cash inflow and trading horizon in asset markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 359-384.
    14. Loukas Balafoutas & Simon Czermak & Marc Eulerich & Helena Fornwagner, 2020. "Incentives For Dishonesty: An Experimental Study With Internal Auditors," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(2), pages 764-779, April.
    15. Shinichi Hirota & Juergen Huber & Thomas Stock & Shyam Sunder, 2018. "Speculation and Price Indeterminacy in Financial Markets: An Experimental Study," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2134, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    16. Michael Razen & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler, 2016. "Cash Inflow and Trading Horizon in Asset Markets," Working Papers 2016-06, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    17. Akiyama, Eizo & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Ishikawa, Ryuichiro, 2014. "How do experienced traders respond to inflows of inexperienced traders? An experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-18.
    18. Utz Weitzel & Christoph Huber & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler & Florian Lindner & Julia Rose & Lauren Cohen, 2020. "Bubbles and Financial Professionals [Margin, short sell, and lotteries in experimental asset markets]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(6), pages 2659-2696.
    19. Dean Johnson & Patrick Joyce, 2012. "Bubbles and Crashes Revisited," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 2, pages 29-42, August.
    20. Owen Powell & Natalia Shestakova, 2017. "Experimental asset markets: behavior and bubbles," Chapters, in: Morris Altman (ed.), Handbook of Behavioural Economics and Smart Decision-Making, chapter 21, pages 375-391, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    common knowledge of rationality; price bubbles; asset market experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:syd:wpaper:2123/8368. 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: Vanessa Holcombe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deusyau.html .

    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.