IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v12y1998i1p207-18.html

Classroom Games: Speculation and Bubbles in an Asset Market

Author

Listed:
  • Sheryl B. Ball
  • Charles A. Holt

Abstract

This paper describes a classroom exercise in which students trade assets of uncertain value in a sequence of market periods. Assets pay one-dollar dividends at the end of each period, but once the dividend is paid there is fixed probability that the asset will be destroyed. Dividends and probabilities are chosen so that the fundamental value is constant over time. Speculative bubbles can be caused by divergent expectations about other traders' valuations of the asset. This exercise provides an interactive framework that facilitates discussions of discounting, rational expectations, and backward induction.

Suggested Citation

  • Sheryl B. Ball & Charles A. Holt, 1998. "Classroom Games: Speculation and Bubbles in an Asset Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 207-218, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:12:y:1998:i:1:p:207-18
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.12.1.207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.12.1.207
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sunder, S., 1992. "Experimental Asset Markets: A Survey," GSIA Working Papers 1992-19, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    2. Vernon L. Smith, 1964. "Effect of Market Organization on Competitive Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 78(2), pages 181-201.
    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. Satoshi Kanazawa, 2004. "The Savanna Principle," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 41-54.
    2. Søberg, Martin, 2003. "Voting rules and endogenous trading institutions: An experimental study," Memorandum 17/2002, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    3. Chaudhuri, Ananish, 2016. "Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2015, xvi + 415 pp., Hardcover, USD 27.95, ISBN: 978-0-393-08094-0," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 64-65.
    4. Klarita Sadiraj & Arthur Schram, 2018. "Inside information in Ponzi schemes," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(1), pages 29-45, July.
    5. Morten Søberg, 2002. "Voting rules and endogenous trading institutions: An experimental study," Discussion Papers 328, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    6. Keser, Claudia & Markstädter, Andreas, 2014. "Informational asymmetries in laboratory asset markets with state-dependent fundamentals," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 207 [rev.], University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    7. Keser Claudia & Gaudeul Alexia, 2016. "Foreword: Special Issue in Honor of Reinhard Selten’s 85th Birthday," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 277-283, August.
    8. Wolfers, Justin & Zitzewitz, Eric, 2006. "Prediction Markets in Theory and Practice," CEPR Discussion Papers 5578, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. 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.
    10. Slembeck, Tilman & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2004. "Do institutions promote rationality?: An experimental study of the three-door anomaly," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 337-350, July.
    11. Hirota, Shinichi & Sunder, Shyam, 2007. "Price bubbles sans dividend anchors: Evidence from laboratory stock markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1875-1909, June.
    12. 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.
    13. Søberg, Morten, 2003. "A laboratory stress-test of bid, double and offer auctions," Memorandum 05/2002, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    14. Giulio Bottazzi & Giovanna Devetag, 2005. "Expectations Structure in Asset Pricing Experiments," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, in: Thomas Lux & Eleni Samanidou & Stefan Reitz (ed.), Nonlinear Dynamics and Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, pages 11-26, Springer.
    15. Le Coq, Chloe & Orzen, Henrik, 2006. "Do forward markets enhance competition?: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 415-431, November.
    16. Jason Childs & Stuart Mestelman, 2006. "Rate‐of‐return Parity in Experimental Asset Markets," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 331-347, August.
    17. Mathias Drehmann & Jörg Oechssler & Andreas Roider, 2005. "Herding and Contrarian Behavior in Financial Markets: An Internet Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1403-1426, December.
    18. Morten Søberg, 2002. "The Duhem-Quine thesis and experimental economics. A reinterpretation," Discussion Papers 329, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    19. Nicholas Seybert & Robert Bloomfield, 2009. "Contagion of Wishful Thinking in Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 738-751, May.
    20. Te Bao & Cars Hommes & Tomasz Makarewicz, 2017. "Bubble Formation and (In)Efficient Markets in Learning‐to‐forecast and optimise Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 581-609, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A22 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Undergraduate
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:aea:jecper:v:12:y:1998:i:1:p:207-18. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.