Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1983
Abstract
In Watt v. Energy Action Educational Foundation, the Supreme Court rebutted a challenge to the federal government's mix of "nontraditional" outer continental shelflease-auction mechanisms authorized under the 1978 OCS Amendments. The issues of this case addressed here include: the economic intent of the congressional language; incentive properties of various of the authorized auction processes; methodological shortcomings inherent in the implicit congressional directive for field experimentation; and, the usefulness of laboratory experimental economics in answering relevant auction-policy questions. The discussion of experimental economics includes evidence already gained from laboratory experiments relating to hypotheses about auction-market performance
Recommended Citation
Cox, James W., R. Mark Isaac, and Vernon L. Smith. “OCS Leasing and Auctions: Incentives and the Performance of Alternative Bidding Institutions.” Supreme Court Economic Review, 2 (1983): 43-87.
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
University of Chicago
Comments
This article was originally published in Supreme Court Economic Review, volume 2, in 1983.