Contracting under asymmetric information and externalities: an experimental study
通过实验室实验，研究在存在外部性和信息不对称时合同谈判的效率，发现即使外部性较大时，参与者仍常无法达成事后有效协议。
Abstract We investigate contract negotiations in the presence of externalities and asymmetric information in a controlled laboratory experiment. In our setup, it is commonly known that it is always ex post efficient for player A to implement a project that has a positive external effect on player B . However, player A has private information about whether or not it is in player A ’s self-interest to implement the project even when no agreement with player B is reached. Theoretically, an ex post efficient agreement can always be reached if the externality is large, whereas this is not the case if the externality is small. We vary the size of the externality and the bargaining process. The experimental results are broadly in line with the theoretical predictions. However, even when the externality is large, the players fail to achieve ex post efficiency in a substantial fraction of the observations. This finding holds in ultimatum-game bargaining as well as in unstructured bargaining with free-form communication.