Bidding for nothing? The pitfalls of overly neutral framing

Peter Duersch and Julia Müller ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Peter Dürsch

Applied Economics Letters, 2017, vol. 24, issue 13, 932-935

Abstract: Neutral framing is a standard tool of experimental economics. However, overly neutral instructions, which lack any contextual clues, can lead to strange behaviour. In a contextless second-price auction for a meaningless good, a majority of subjects enter positive bids – likely a case of cognitive experimenter demand effect. Subjects may interpret the lack of context as being tasked with bidding in the experiment. Adding another auction that has a context drastically reduces the positive bids in the meaningless auction.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2016.1240337

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