Do sellers offer menus of contracts to separate buyer types? An experimental test of adverse selection theory
通过954人参与的实验室实验，检验逆向选择模型中卖家是否通过提供合同菜单来区分买家类型，结果基本支持理论预测，并发现私人信息在好状态下可能提升福利。
In the basic adverse selection model, a seller makes a contract offer to a privately informed buyer. A fundamental hypothesis of incentive theory is that the seller may want to offer a menu of contracts to separate the buyer types. In the good state of nature, total surplus is not different from the symmetric information benchmark, while in the bad state, private information may be welfare-reducing. We have conducted a laboratory experiment with 954 participants to test these hypotheses. While the results largely corroborate the theoretical predictions, we also find that private information may be welfare-enhancing in the good state.