Mar. 16th,
Alex Brown, Ph.D.
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Experimental Analysis of Envy-Free Auction

Alex Brown headshot
Dr. Alex Brown, a guest of the IFREE/ESI Lecture SeriesAbstract: Economic concerns for equity have motivated game theorists to study envy-free mechanisms. Though not incentive compatible, these mechanisms implement in Nash equilibria efficient allocations at which no agent prefers the consumption of any other agent to their own. In experimental allocation decisions between two players, an envy-free first-price auction achieves similar efficiency and far greater no-envy than ultimatum bargaining. Both unsophisticated subject bidding and coordination failure are responsible for the departure from Nash equilibrium behavior in the envy-free auction, as bidding strategies vary greatly among subjects. Quantal response equilibrium and level- k models can explain most of this subjects bidding behavior.

Bio: Alex Brown is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University, having joined there in Fall 2008.  He received his B.S. at Ohio State in 2003, and PhD at Caltech in 2008. Alex has a wide variety of research interests including experimental economics, behavioral economics, game theory, behavioral finance and industrial organization. His published papers appear in AEJ: Microeconomimcs, Annals of Finance, Economic Inquiry, Marketing Letters, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.