Seminario 'Experiments on forward markets with multiple openings'

José Luis Ferreira, Departamento de Economía de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

José Luis Ferreira es profesor del Departamento de Economía de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Es doctor en Economía por la Northwestern University y licenciado en Economía por la Universidad del País Vasco. Sus áreas de investigación se centran en la Teoría de Juegos, Microeconomía y Organización Industrial.

Abstract: We test the competition enhancing effect of selling forward in experimental Cournot duopoly and quadropoly with multiple forward markets. We find that a finite version of the Allaz and Vila (1993) model with two forward periods yields competitive outcomes and that the results are very close to the predicted theoretical results for both duopolies and quadropolies. Our experiments lend strong support to the hypothesis that forward markets are competition enhancing. We then test a new market that allows for endogenously determined indefinitely many forward periods that only close when sellers coordinate on selling nothing in a forward market. We find that the outcomes under an endogenous close rule are very competitive. These results hold for both duopolies and quadropolies. The experiments are repeated under different specifications: one with random matching, simulated arbitrators and no previous Cournot phase, and another with fixed matching, real arbitrators and previous Cournot. We do not observe relevant differences among them. Finally, a repetition is done with experienced subjects. In this case, markets are less competitive than in the previous cases, but still more competitive than in the absence of forward markets, for the exogenous cases, but not for the endogenous cases.

11 horas