The assurance problem in a laboratory market

The financial support of the National Science Foundation (SES 8606770 and 8608112) and of the Alfred P. Sloan foundation is gratefully acknowledged. The data from the experiments reported here are on PLATO permanent storage and are available from the authors upon requests. These experiments were conducted using the facilities of the Economic Science Laboratory at the University of Arizona. The assistance of Joe Campbell and Sheryl Ball in conducting these experiments is greatly appreciated. We thank David Conn, David Porter, Kevin McCabe, Tom Palfrey, S.Y. Tang, and Gordon Tullock for their comments on this and earlier drafts, with the responsibility for remaining errors being strictly our own.