Competition and Price Transparency in the Market for Lemons: Experimental Evidence
通过实验研究信息不对称市场中竞争与价格透明度对效率的影响，发现竞争在价格不可观察时促进效率，但可观察时仍有效，策略方法能恢复理论预测的效率损失。
In markets with asymmetric information, where equilibria are often inefficient, bargaining can help promote welfare. We design an experiment to examine the impact of competition and price transparency in such settings. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, we find that competition promotes efficiency if bargainers cannot observe each other’s price offers. Contrary to the predictions, however, the efficiency-enhancing effect of competition persists even when offers are observable. We explore different behavioral explanations for the absence of a detrimental effect of price transparency. Remarkably, implementing the strategy method improves subjects’ conditional reasoning, delivering the predicted loss in efficiency when offers are observable.