A two-period model of an industry of risk-neutral processors who have nonlinear production costs and who face transact ions costs in the spot and futures markets is put forth as a countere xample to the models of commodity markets in which processors' risk a version plays the major role. The model's equilibrium exhibits the sa lient endogenous features of actual commodity markets, namely, that t he futures price is below the current spot price, that processors hol d inventories despite this opportunity cost, that those holding inven tories are short in futures, and that processors as a group hold an u nbalanced, usually net short, position in the futures market.

[The Tokyo Grain Exchange (TGE)'s itayose mechanism provides the opportunity to analyze functioning Walrasian ta.tonnement auctions (WTA). In 15,677 auctions conducted over 1997-1998 for corn and redbean futures contracts, price formation is unexpectedly similar to that observed in continuous double auctions. Provisional prices and pledges are informative. In contrast to behavior observed in experiments, few pledges are deceptive, because the traders participate repeatedly and because the auctioneer has flexibility when changing the provisional price and ending the auction. Both the risk of the auction ending and the more equitable dispersion of information increase depth and the speed at which information is embodied in price.]

The Tokyo Grain Exchange (TGE)’s itayose mechanism provides the opportunity to analyze functioning Walrasian tâtonnement auctions (WTA). In 15,677 auctions conducted over 1997–1998 for corn and redbean futures contracts, price formation is unexpectedly similar to that observed in continuous double auctions. Provisional prices and pledges are informative. In contrast to behavior observed in experiments, few pledges are deceptive, because the traders participate repeatedly and because the auctioneer has flexibility when changing the provisional price and ending the auction. Both the risk of the auction ending and the more equitable dispersion of information increase depth and the speed at which information is embodied in price.

This paper examines the welfare effects of introducing storage into a market with stochastic supply in which all agents are competitive profit-maximizers with rational expectations. These welfare effects are the net result of the initial increase in demand for stock-building and the partial and asymmetric reduction in the dispersion of consumption brought about by storage. The distributional impacts depend crucially on the information available to producers before storage is introduced, the elasticity of supply, the specification of the consumption demand curve, and the cost of storage.

This paper reports the results of multiple studies that together provide converging evidence in support of the theory that gender stereotypes bias employee selection during group recruiting events. Specifically, we predict and find that female (male) job candidates who exhibit stereotypically male behaviors receive lower (higher) evaluations during group recruiting events, particularly among male recruiters. Prior research suggests gender stereotypes do not bias employee selection during one‐on‐one interviews. However, our results suggest that evaluating job candidates in the more social context of group events can have important unintended consequences on employee selection, a key component of the accounting control environment. Given the importance of group recruiting events to inform hiring decisions across organizations such as investment banks and public accounting firms, our results contribute to a better understanding of survey and field evidence suggesting that entry‐level male and female employees have different personalities at these organizations, which appear to influence their career trajectories.

Experimental research suggests the Walrasian tâtonnement auction encourages traders to under-reveal preferences, even encouraging initial pledges contrary to true desires, because pledges are not binding. We analyze the timing and characteristics of individual pledges and trades during 9604 auctions for redbeans conducted by the Tokyo Grain Exchange. We find no evidence of contrarian pledging and little evidence of under-revelation – as many traders over-reveal as under-reveal. Most traders pledge seriously from the beginning. Despite the considerable heterogeneity in pledging behavior across individual traders, these differences appear to have no relationship with traders’ profits, nor do they appear to affect the achievement of equilibrium.