The Institutional Nature of Price Bubbles

摘要: "Price bubbles remain a puzzle for economic theory, particularly given their appearance in experimental markets with high efficiency and minimized uncertainty and noise. We propose that bubbles are caused by the institutionalization of social norms, when individuals observe and adopt the behavior of others. Explanations of bounded rationality or individual bias appear insufficient as we show experimentally that (1) participants' pricing skills are better ex-ante than ex-post and (2) that individual discrepancies between intrinsic values and market prices become increasingly serially correlated during trading. We also find no support for the "Greater Fool" explanations"--Authors' abstract.