IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v54y2006i1p159-182.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Recombinant estimation for normal-form games, with applications to auctions and bargaining

Author

Listed:
  • Mullin, Charles H.
  • Reiley, David H.

Abstract

In empirical analysis of economic games, researchers frequently wish to estimate quantities describing group outcomes, such as the expected revenue in an auction or the mean allocative efficiency in a market experiment. For such applications, we propose an improved statistical estimation technique called "recombinant estimation." The technique takes observations of the complete strategy of each player and recombines them to compute all the possible group outcomes which could have resulted from different matches of players. We calculate the improvement in efficiency of the recombinant estimator relative to the standard estimator, and show how to estimate standard errors for the recombinant estimator for use in hypothesis testing. We present an application to a two-player sealed-bid auction and a two-player ultimatum bargaining game. In these applications, the improved efficiency of our estimator is equivalent to an increase of between 40% and 200% in the sample size. We discuss how to design game experiments in order to be able to take full advantage of recombinant estimation. Finally, we discuss practical computational issues, showing how one can avoid combinatorial explosions of computing time while still yielding significantly improved efficiency of estimation.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Mullin, Charles H. & Reiley, David H., 2006. "Recombinant estimation for normal-form games, with applications to auctions and bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 159-182, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:54:y:2006:i:1:p:159-182
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899-8256(04)00161-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitzkewitz, Michael & Nagel, Rosemarie, 1993. "Experimental Results on Ultimatum Games with Incomplete Information," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 22(2), pages 171-198.
    2. David Lucking-Reiley & John A. List, 2000. "Demand Reduction in Multiunit Auctions: Evidence from a Sportscard Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 961-972, September.
    3. Kagel, John H & Harstad, Ronald M & Levin, Dan, 1987. "Information Impact and Allocation Rules in Auctions with Affiliated Private Values: A Laboratory Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(6), pages 1275-1304, November.
    4. Kagel, John H & Levin, Dan, 1993. "Independent Private Value Auctions: Bidder Behaviour in First-, Second- and Third-Price Auctions with Varying Numbers of Bidders," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(419), pages 868-879, July.
    5. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    6. Robert Moir, 1998. "A Monte Carlo Analysis of the Fisher Randomization Technique: Reviving Randomization for Experimental Economists," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 87-100, June.
    7. Mehta, Judith & Starmer, Chris & Sugden, Robert, 1994. "The Nature of Salience: An Experimental Investigation of Pure Coordination Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 658-673, June.
    8. repec:feb:framed:0052 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Friedman, Daniel, 1996. "Equilibrium in Evolutionary Games: Some Experimental Results," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(434), pages 1-25, January.
    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. Rodney Garratt & John Wooders, 2010. "Efficiency in Second-Price Auctions: A New Look at Old Data," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 37(1), pages 43-50, August.
    2. Kirchkamp, Oliver & Moldovanu, Benny, 2004. "An experimental analysis of auctions with interdependent valuations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 54-85, July.
    3. GlennW. Harrison & JohnA. List, 2008. "Naturally Occurring Markets and Exogenous Laboratory Experiments: A Case Study of the Winner's Curse," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 822-843, April.
    4. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Maurizio Canavari & Andreas C. Drichoutis & Jayson L. Lusk & Rodolfo M. Nayga, Jr., 2018. "How to run an experimental auction: A review of recent advances," Working Papers 2018-5, Agricultural University of Athens, Department Of Agricultural Economics.
    6. Mezzetti, Claudio & Tsetlin, Ilia, 2009. "Auctions in which losers set the price," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 855-864, July.
    7. Alexander Elbittar & Andrei Gomberg, 2007. "Uniform-Price Auctions without Exogenous Uncertainty: An experimental study," Working Papers DTE 404, CIDE, División de Economía.
    8. Crawford, VP, 2014. "Boundedly rational versus optimization-based models of strategic thinking and learning in games," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt04h694rz, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    9. Kagel, John H. & Levin, Dan, 2009. "Implementing efficient multi-object auction institutions: An experimental study of the performance of boundedly rational agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 221-237, May.
    10. Emiel Maasland & Sander Onderstal, 2006. "Going, Going, Gone! A Swift Tour of Auction Theory and its Applications," De Economist, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 197-249, June.
    11. Noussair, Charles & Robin, Stephane & Ruffieux, Bernard, 2004. "Revealing consumers' willingness-to-pay: A comparison of the BDM mechanism and the Vickrey auction," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 725-741, December.
    12. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    13. Stryszowska, M.A., 2006. "Essays on auctions," Other publications TiSEM 4e64e5bc-4b6d-4e0e-9b03-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Jason Abrevaya, 2008. "On recombinant estimation for experimental data," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 11(1), pages 25-52, March.
    15. Ty Feldkamp & Ted C. Schroeder, 2004. "Experimental Auction Procedure: Impact on Valuation of Quality Differentiated Goods," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(2), pages 389-405.
    16. Joyce Delnoij & Kris Jaegher, 2020. "Competing first-price and second-price auctions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(1), pages 183-216, February.
    17. Andrej Woerner & Sander Onderstal & Arthur Schram, 2022. "Comparing Crowdfunding Mechanisms: Introducing the Generalized Moulin-Shenker Mechanism," CESifo Working Paper Series 10081, CESifo.
    18. Andrej Woerner & Sander Onderstal & Arthur Schram, 2022. "Comparing Crowdfunding Mechanisms: Introducing the Generalized Moulin-Shenker Mechanism," CESifo Working Paper Series 10081, CESifo.
    19. David Lucking-Reiley, 1999. "Using Field Experiments to Test Equivalence between Auction Formats: Magic on the Internet," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1063-1080, December.
    20. Lusk, Jayson L. & Daniel, M. Scott & Mark, Darrell R. & Lusk, Christine L., 2001. "Alternative Calibration And Auction Institutions For Predicting Consumer Willingess To Pay For Nongenetically Modified Corn Chips," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 26(01), pages 1-18, July.

    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:eee:gamebe:v:54:y:2006:i:1:p:159-182. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    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.