Laboratory experiments in corporate and investment finance: a survey

In this paper the small but growing field of experimental Corporate and Investment Finance is reviewed. Excluded is the large and influential experimental asset market literature. Topics covered include experimental examination of agency problems, the interaction of risk and information choices, laboratory tests of asset pricing theories, experimental examination of financing and dividend decisions in the presence of asymmetric information between managers and investors and tests of game theoretic models of corporate takeovers. In general, studies that allow interactions among participants are more successful at corroborating Finance theories, emphasizing the importance of markets for communicating information among participants.