Countless experimental studies have shown that markets converge quickly and efficiently to the competitive outcome under many
trading institutions, particularly the double auction mechanism. This creates difficulties for Keynesian stories of unemployment
creation—which suggest a noncompetitive outcome in an essentially competitive world. Such stories were popular in the late
1960s and 1970s. One of these stories—the dual decision hypothesis of Clower—was seen then as the beginning of a story of
unemployment. This article reports the results of an experiment designed to test this hypothesis. Specifically, we set up
an experiment in which there are two sequential double-auction markets, in the first of which one good (labour) is traded,
after which the second market (goods) is opened and the second good traded. We compare the outcome of our experiment with
that of the competitive theory. One general finding is that not enough trade takes place in the two markets. In other words,
the usual finding that competitive equilibrium is achieved in double-auction markets is not replicated in this sequential
setting.
sequential trade - unemployment - double auctions - competitive equilibrium
This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.