Speed traps: Algorithmic trader performance under alternative market balances and structures (2023)
Journal Article
Peng, Y., Shachat, J., Wei, L., & Sarah Zhang, S. (2023). Speed traps: Algorithmic trader performance under alternative market balances and structures. Experimental Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-023-09816-8

Using double auction market experiments with both human and agent traders, we demonstrate that agent traders prioritizing low latency often generate, sometimes perversely so, diminished earnings in a variety of market structures and configurations.... Read More about Speed traps: Algorithmic trader performance under alternative market balances and structures.

Does mining fuel bubbles? An experimental study on cryptocurrency markets (2023)
Journal Article
Sofianos, A., Lambrecht, M., & Xu, Y. (in press). Does mining fuel bubbles? An experimental study on cryptocurrency markets. Management Science,

We investigate how key features associated with the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism of Bitcoin (commonly referred to as mining) affect pricing. In a controlled laboratory experiment, we observe that price bubble formation can be attributed to minin... Read More about Does mining fuel bubbles? An experimental study on cryptocurrency markets.

Intelligence Disclosure and Cooperation in Repeated Interactions (2023)
Journal Article
Lambrecht, M., Proto, E., Rustichini, A., & Sofianos, A. (in press). Intelligence Disclosure and Cooperation in Repeated Interactions. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics,

How does the information on players’ intelligence affect strategic behavior? Game theory, based on the assumption of common knowledge of rationality, does not provide useful predictions. We experimentally show that in the Prisoners’ Dilemma disclosur... Read More about Intelligence Disclosure and Cooperation in Repeated Interactions.

Migration and Trust: Evidence on Assimilation from Internal Migrants (2023)
Working Paper
Marino Fages, D. Migration and Trust: Evidence on Assimilation from Internal Migrants

I study whether internal migrants assimilate culturally to the locals. Investigating this question with observational data has been challenging because it requires disentangling assimilation from sorting and because data on immigrants before migratin... Read More about Migration and Trust: Evidence on Assimilation from Internal Migrants.

Anger Impairs Strategic Behavior: A Beauty-Contest Based Analysis (2023)
Journal Article
Castagnetti, A., Proto, E., & Sofianos, A. (2023). Anger Impairs Strategic Behavior: A Beauty-Contest Based Analysis. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 213, 128-141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.06.027

The frustration-aggression hypothesis posits that anger affects economic behaviour essentially by temporally changing individual social preferences and specifically attitudes towards punishment. Here, we test a different channel in an experiment whe... Read More about Anger Impairs Strategic Behavior: A Beauty-Contest Based Analysis.

Blocking D2/D3 dopamine receptors in male participants increases volatility of beliefs when learning to trust others (2023)
Journal Article
Mikus, N., Eisenegger, C., Mathys, C., Clark, L., Müller, U., Robbins, T. W., …Naef, M. (2023). Blocking D2/D3 dopamine receptors in male participants increases volatility of beliefs when learning to trust others. Nature Communications, 14(1), Article 4049. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39823-5

The ability to learn about other people is crucial for human social functioning. Dopamine has been proposed to regulate the precision of beliefs, but direct behavioural evidence of this is lacking. In this study, we investigate how a high dose of the... Read More about Blocking D2/D3 dopamine receptors in male participants increases volatility of beliefs when learning to trust others.

On the generalizability of using mobile devices to conduct economic experiments (2023)
Journal Article
Guo, Y., Shachat, J., Walker, M. J., & Wei, L. (2023). On the generalizability of using mobile devices to conduct economic experiments. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 106, Article 102057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2023.102057

Mobile devices enable experimental economists to collect decision-making data from more heterogeneous samples, thereby increasing the generalizability of their results. This generalizability may be compromised if the device is a relevant behavioural... Read More about On the generalizability of using mobile devices to conduct economic experiments.

Rice Farming and the Origins of Cooperative Behaviour (2023)
Journal Article
Zhou, X., Alysandratos, T., & Naef, M. (2023). Rice Farming and the Origins of Cooperative Behaviour. The Economic Journal, 133(654), 2504-2532. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uead030

This paper provides novel evidence for links between historic farming practices and current norms of cooperative behaviour. We hypothesise that the cooperation required in wetland rice farming gives rise to strong cultural norms of cooperativeness. W... Read More about Rice Farming and the Origins of Cooperative Behaviour.

A test of the Modigliani-Miller theorem, dividend policy and algorithmic arbitrage in experimental asset markets (2023)
Journal Article
Neugebauer, T., Shachat, J., & Szymczak, W. (2023). A test of the Modigliani-Miller theorem, dividend policy and algorithmic arbitrage in experimental asset markets. Journal of Banking and Finance, 154(September), Article 106814. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2023.106814

Modigliani and Miller showed the market value of the company is independent of its capital structure, and suggested that dividend policy makes no difference to this law of one price. We experimentally test the Modigliani-Miller theorem in a complete... Read More about A test of the Modigliani-Miller theorem, dividend policy and algorithmic arbitrage in experimental asset markets.

Using the Strategy Method and Beliefs to Explain Group Size and MPCR Effects in Public Good Experiments (2023)
Working Paper
Gächter, S., & Marino Fages, D. Using the Strategy Method and Beliefs to Explain Group Size and MPCR Effects in Public Good Experiments

Self-reported & revealed trust: Experimental evidence (2022)
Journal Article
Sofianos, A. (2022). Self-reported & revealed trust: Experimental evidence. Journal of Economic Psychology, 88, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2021.102451

The conditional contribution mechanism for repeated public goods – The general case (2022)
Journal Article
Oechssler, J., Reischmann, A., & Sofianos, A. (2022). The conditional contribution mechanism for repeated public goods – The general case. Journal of Economic Theory, 203, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jet.2022.105488

Intelligence, Errors, and Cooperation in Repeated Interactions (2022)
Journal Article
Proto, E., Rustichini, A., & Sofianos, A. (2022). Intelligence, Errors, and Cooperation in Repeated Interactions. The Review of Economic Studies, 89(5), https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdab095

Arbitrage bots in experimental asset markets (2022)
Journal Article
Angerera, M., Neugebauer, T., & Shachat, J. (2023). Arbitrage bots in experimental asset markets. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 206, 262-278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.12.004

Trading algorithms are an integral component of modern asset markets. In twin experimental markets for long-lived correlated assets we examine the impact of alternative types of arbitrage-seeking algorithms. These arbitrage robot traders vary in thei... Read More about Arbitrage bots in experimental asset markets.

Are you experienced? How the time spacing of traders' market experience impacts bubble formation in experimental asset markets (2022)
Book Chapter
Shachat, J., & Wang, H. (2022). Are you experienced? How the time spacing of traders' market experience impacts bubble formation in experimental asset markets. In S. Füllbrunn, & E. Haruvy (Eds.), Handbook of Experimental Finance (267-280). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800372337.00028

We demonstrate when market experience is spaced out over a longer period of time (weeks instead of minutes), the increase in pricing efficiency is very small - if at all - for the same population of traders. However pricing efficiency gains are subst... Read More about Are you experienced? How the time spacing of traders' market experience impacts bubble formation in experimental asset markets.

How auctioneers set reserve prices in procurement auctions (2022)
Journal Article
Shachat, J., & Tan, L. (2022). How auctioneers set reserve prices in procurement auctions. European Journal of Operational Research, 304(2), 709-728. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2022.04.025

We introduce a behavioral model that effectively predicts auctioneers’ reserve choice patterns in English clock auctions across varying reserve price formats (whether reserve prices are set ex-ante or ex-post auction events), number of bidders and th... Read More about How auctioneers set reserve prices in procurement auctions.

Trust and Trustworthiness in Procurement Contracts with Retainage (2022)
Journal Article
Walker, M. J., Katok, E., & Shachat, J. (2023). Trust and Trustworthiness in Procurement Contracts with Retainage. Management Science, 69(6), 3492–3515. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4516

In complex procurement projects, it is difficult to write enforceable contracts that condition price upon quality. Supplier non-performance becomes an acute risk, particularly when there is intense competition for the contract. An established incenti... Read More about Trust and Trustworthiness in Procurement Contracts with Retainage.

Migration and social preferences (2022)
Journal Article
Marino Fages, D., & Morales Cerda, M. (2022). Migration and social preferences. Economics Letters, 218, Article 110773. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110773

Anti-immigrant sentiment is frequently motivated by the idea that migrants are a threat to the host country’s culture (Rapoport et al., 2020). We contribute to the discussion by investigating whether or not migrants adapt their social preferences (SP... Read More about Migration and social preferences.

Entry and exit decisions under public and private information: an experiment (2022)
Journal Article
Chernulich, A., Horowitz, J., Rabanal, J. P., Rud, O., & Sharifova, M. (2023). Entry and exit decisions under public and private information: an experiment. Experimental Economics, 26(2), 339-356. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-022-09764-9

We design an experiment to study how reversible entry decisions are affected by public and private payoff disclosure policies. In our environment, subjects choose between a risky payoff, which evolves according to an autoregressive process, and a con... Read More about Entry and exit decisions under public and private information: an experiment.

Informational price cascades and non-aggregation of asymmetric information in experimental asset markets (2022)
Journal Article
Shachat, J., & Srinivasan, A. (2022). Informational price cascades and non-aggregation of asymmetric information in experimental asset markets. Journal of Behavioral Finance, 23(4), 388-407. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427560.2022.2081970

We report on experimental markets which generate an abject failure of the aggregation of asymmetric information. While realized prices have zero correlation with fundamental values, surprisingly, these are not highly volatile. The non-aggregation of... Read More about Informational price cascades and non-aggregation of asymmetric information in experimental asset markets.