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Selected Works

Bart J Wilson

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Full-Text Articles in Law

An Experimental Analysis Of The Demand For Payday Loans, Bart J. Wilson, David W. Findlay, James W. Meehan, Charissa P. Wellford, Karl Schurter Apr 2010

An Experimental Analysis Of The Demand For Payday Loans, Bart J. Wilson, David W. Findlay, James W. Meehan, Charissa P. Wellford, Karl Schurter

Bart J Wilson

The payday loan industry is one of the fastest growing segments of the consumer financial services market in the United States. The purpose of our study is to design an environment similar to the one that payday loan customers face. We then conduct a laboratory experiment to examine what effect, if any, the existence of payday loans has on individuals' abilities to manage and to survive financial setbacks. Our primary objective is to examine whether access to payday loans improves or worsens the likelihood of survival in our experiment. We also test the degree to which people's use of payday …

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Promoting Experimental Economics In The Classroom, Bart J. Wilson, Stephen Jackstadt, Paul R. Johnson Jan 2007

Promoting Experimental Economics In The Classroom, Bart J. Wilson, Stephen Jackstadt, Paul R. Johnson

Bart J Wilson

Economic experiments allow the K-12 teacher to promote active learning that is also rigorously grounded in economic theory. In an experiment students test for themselves the economics they hear in lectures and read in their textbooks. The authors have found that working through the existing teacher professional development system is a promising approach to infusing experimental methods into the school curriculum. This paper describes a short professional development course in experimental economics. The experience of conducting the course with two groups of teachers is discussed and survey results pertaining to teacher implementation of classroom experiments are presented.

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Historical Property Rights, Sociality, And The Emergence Of Impersonal Exchange In Long-Distance Trade, Bart J. Wilson, Erik Kimbrough, Vernon L. Smith Sep 2006

Historical Property Rights, Sociality, And The Emergence Of Impersonal Exchange In Long-Distance Trade, Bart J. Wilson, Erik Kimbrough, Vernon L. Smith

Bart J Wilson

This laboratory experiment explores the extent to which impersonal exchange emerges from personal exchange with opportunities for long-distance trade. We design a three-commodity production and exchange economy in which agents in three geographically separated villages must develop multilateral exchange networks to import a third good only available abroad. For treatments, we induce two distinct institutional histories to investigate how past experience with property rights affect the evolution of specialization and exchange. We find that a history of un-enforced property rights hinders our subjects' ability to develop the requisite personal social arrangements necessary to support specialization and effectively exploit impersonal long-distance …

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Exchange And Specializiation As A Discovery Process, Bart J. Wilson, Sean Crockett, Vernon L. Smith Apr 2006

Exchange And Specializiation As A Discovery Process, Bart J. Wilson, Sean Crockett, Vernon L. Smith

Bart J Wilson

In this paper we study the performance of an economic environment that can support specialization if the participants implement and develop some system of exchange. We define a closed economy in which the participants must discover the ability to exchange, implement it, and ascertain what they are comparatively advantaged in producing. Many people demonstrate the ability to find comparative advantage, capture gains from trade, and effectively choose production that is consistent with the choices of others. However, many do not become specialists, even though full efficiency can only be achieved if everyone does so. Near-full efficiency does occur bilaterally in …

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Experimental Gasoline Markets, Bart J. Wilson, Cary A. Deck Jan 2006

Experimental Gasoline Markets, Bart J. Wilson, Cary A. Deck

Bart J Wilson

Zone pricing in wholesale gasoline markets is a contentious topic in the public policy debate. Refiners contend that they use zone pricing to be competitive with local rivals. Critics claim that zone pricing benefits the oil industry and harms consumers. With a controlled experiment, we investigate the competitive effects of zone pricing on consumers, retail stations, and refiners vis-a-vis the proposed policy prescription of uniform wholesale pricing to retailers. We also examine the issue of divorcement and the rockets and feathers phenomenon. The former is the legal restriction that refiners and retailers cannot be vertically integrated, and the latter is …

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Building A Market: From Personal To Impersonal Exchange, Vernon L. Smith, Erik Kimbrough, Bart J. Wilson Dec 2005

Building A Market: From Personal To Impersonal Exchange, Vernon L. Smith, Erik Kimbrough, Bart J. Wilson

Bart J Wilson

Adam Smith identified two key components in the wealth creation process of human societies: exchange and specialization. More than two centuries later relatively little is understood about the underlying process by which people build exchange systems and discover comparative advantage. In this chapter we report on a pilot experiment that explores the social mainsprings that give rise to the market. Specifically, using cash-motivated participants we compare and contrast the personal, social interactions within a village with those of the participants engaged in long-distance trade among a system of interconnected virtual villages.

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An Experimental Analysis Of The Effects Of Automated Mitigation Procedures On Investment And Prices In Wholesale Electricity Markets, Bart J. Wilson, L. Lynne Kiesling May 2005

An Experimental Analysis Of The Effects Of Automated Mitigation Procedures On Investment And Prices In Wholesale Electricity Markets, Bart J. Wilson, L. Lynne Kiesling

Bart J Wilson

In this paper we report the findings of an experiment that examines the effects of automated mitigation procedures (AMP) on capacity investment prices of suppliers in a wholesale electricity market. Specifically, in a 2 x 2 design we examine the effects of strong and weak market power incentives on markets with and without the AMP. We find that a type of soft relative offer cap does not affect overall investment in capacity. The AMP also does not reduce long-run wholesale electricity prices relative to markets in which no mitigation mechanism is in operation. The factor with the most significant effect …

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Economics At The Pump, Bart J. Wilson, Cary A. Deck Dec 2003

Economics At The Pump, Bart J. Wilson, Cary A. Deck

Bart J Wilson

Policymakers are often tempted to implement various new laws and regulations intended to prevent gasoline price gouging. We recently carried out economic experiments to test such anti-gouging measures as mandated divorcement and uniform pricing, and we found that those regulations actually harm consumers rather than help them. The reason is simple: The well-meaning interventions are designed to manipulate market allocations, but they backfire because they cannot account for the complex incentives in an intricate industry. Changing the rules alters the behavior of refiners and station owners, which is why the legislation does not have its intended effect on market outcomes.

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