An Experimental Examination of the Walrasian Tatonnement Mechanism

Abstract

Joyce (1984) reports results of experiments of a Walrasian tatonnement auction that show that the mechanism is stable, exhibits strong convergence properties and generates efficiency averaging better than 97%. He also found that when subjects could see part of the order flow (excess demand), price tended to be lower (favorable to buyers). His experiments consisted of a stationary environment where subjects were provided with single-unit supply and demand functions. This paper assesses the robustness of his results in a more complex setting and systematically investigates the effect of various order flow information and message restriction rules on the performance of the Walrasian mechanism. In particular, our subjects were provided with multi-unit demands and supplies where equilibrium price and subject values or costs were changed each trading period.