This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on incentives to adopt advanced abatement technology under emissions trading. Our experimental design mimics an industry with small asymmetric polluting firms regulated by different schemes of tradable permits. We consider three allocation/auction policies: auctioning off (costly) permits through an ascending clock auction, grandfathering permits with re-allocation through a single-unit double auction, and finally grandfathering with re-allocation through an ascending clock auction. We find that the treatments with an initial free allocation of permits (grandfathering) perform closer to the first best investment pattern than the treatment with pure auctioning. This result is mainly driven by higher efficiency in permit allocation in the treatments with grandfathering.JEL Classification: C92; D44; L51; Q28; Q55

In this review we discuss advances in the agent-based modeling of economic and social systems. We show the state of the art of the heuristic design of agents and how behavioral economics and laboratory experiments have improved the modeling of agent behavior. We further discuss how economic networks and social systems can be modeled and we discuss novel methodology and data sources. Lastly, we present an overview of estimation techniques to calibrate and validate agent-based models and show avenues for future research.

In this paper, we elicit both short and long-run expectations about the evolution of the price of a financial asset by conducting a Learning-to-Forecast Experiment (LtFE) in which subjects, in each period, forecast the the asset price for each one of the remaining periods. The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, we try to fill the gap in the experimental literature of LtFEs where great effort has been made in investigating short-run expectations, i.e. one step-ahead predictions, while there are no contributions that elicit long-run expectations. On the other hand, we propose an alternative computational approach with respect to the Heuristic Switching Model (HSM), to replicate the main experimental results. The alternative learning algorithm, called Exploration-Exploitation Algorithm (EEA), is based on the idea that agents anchor their expectations around the last market price, rather than on the fundamental value, with a range proportional to the recent past observed price volatility. Both algorithms perform well in describing the dynamics of short-run expectations and the market price. EEA, additionally, provides a fairly good description of long-run expectations. JEL: D03 G12 C91

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