D.A. Seale et al. J. of Economic Behavior Org. 44 2001 177–200 183
3. Method
3.1. Subjects Fifty undergraduate and graduate students from the universities of Arizona and Alberta
participated as subjects in the three new experimental conditions reported in the present paper SA, SLA, and BAC. In total, 130 subjects participated over the course of this study
and the related ones of DSR and RDS. The subjects were recruited by advertisements placed in the university student daily newspapers promising monetary reward contingent
on performance in a group decision making experiment. Both male and female students responded in nearly equal proportions. The mean payoff per subject was approximately
16.00. In addition, all the subjects received a fixed show-up fee of 5.00.
3.2. Experimental procedure Each experiment lasted approximately 90 min with the first 20 min consisting of orienta-
tion and instructions. For conditions SA and SLA, 20 subjects participated simultaneously in a single session conducted in a laboratory containing 20 networked PCs separated by
an aisle into two groups of 10. The twenty computer terminals were well separated from one another preventing communication between the subjects. Upon entering the laboratory,
the subjects drew a token that determined their role in the experiment i.e. seller or buyer. Buyers were seated in one section of the room and sellers in the other. In the third condition
BAC, the 10 buyers were matched with sellers in a separate room which, unknown to the buyers, were simply computer terminals programmed to respond with LES asks.
Each experiment started with instructions a copy is available at http:cob.nevada.edu scale-wwwbarginst.htm on the use of the individual terminals and the structure of the
sealed-bid mechanism. The instructions were presented in writing as well as displayed on the computer monitor. The subjects were explicitly instructed that their bargaining partners were
randomly varied from trial to trial. All 50 rounds were structured in exactly the same way. At the beginning of each round each seller and each buyer privately received a reservation
value randomly drawn with equal probability from their respective distributions. To allow between-subjects comparisons, each trader received a different permutation of the same 50
reservation values.
Bargaining continued with buyer seller being prompted to state her bid his ask for the round. The computer required the subjects to confirm their responses and warned them if
they might lead to a loss i.e. if c
t
C
t
or v
t
V
t
. Prior to entering their responses, the subjects could review their previous responses and outcomes by calling up a separate screen.
After all 20 subjects responded, the central computer determined for each pair separately whether a deal was struck, and calculated the payoff for each dyad member either V − p
or 0 for the buyer, and either p − C or 0 for the seller. Subjects were then informed of their decision, their opponent’s decision, and if an agreement had been reached, the price p and
the gain for the round. Subjects proceeded at their own pace.
Once all the 50 rounds were completed, each subject was separately paid contingent on his or her performance, thanked, and dismissed.
184 D.A. Seale et al. J. of Economic Behavior Org. 44 2001 177–200
4. Results
