Noise Trading in a Laboratory Financial Market: A Maximum Likelihood Approach

We study the extent to which, in a laboratory financial market, noise trading can stem from subjects' irrationality. We estimate a structural model of sequential trading by using experimental data. In the experiment, subjects receive private information on the value of an asset and trade it in sequence with a market maker. We find that, in the laboratory, the noise due to the irrational use of private information accounts for 35% of the decisions. When subjects act as noise traders, they abstain from trading 67% of the time. When they trade, the probability that they buy is significantly higher than the probability that they sell. (JEL: C92, D8, G14) Copyright (c) 2005 The European Economic Association.