I have conducted six laboratory experiments and written a paper, titled Opening call auction designs and price manipulation for price discovery: An experimental study, which is summarized as follows. This study conducts laboratory experiments under three opening call auction designs to improve the price discovery process. The first design resembles the opening session of major stock exchanges, where traders can place and cancel their orders before the opening price is announced. We alternatively investigate two call auction designs in which traders are not allowed to cancel orders during the session, while the call auction time is divided into sub-periods and orders are executed every sub-period before the opening price is announced. We first demonstrate price manipulations in an economy with cancellations. However, we can mitigate manipulative behavior when we prohibit order cancellations or execute orders periodically before the end of a call auction. Second, we find a gradual price discovery process in economies with and without cancellations. However, price discovery can be quickly achieved in periodic clearings. These results indicate that price manipulations and longer non-trading minutes result in slower price discoveries. Third, we demonstrate that reinforcement learning, by which traders attempt to find profitable strategies from past performances, explains the order choices of our lab participants, and thus, price manipulations and price discovery. We contribute to the literature by emphasizing the important role of reinforcement learning on price manipulations and the price discovery process under different opening call auction designs. Our study has important policy implications regarding which call auction design is better for the opening call market.

The paper was presented at several conferences such as 31st Conference on Computing in Economics and Finance (2024), and submitted to an international journal.

              Based on this research idea, I have written a proposal on a project and applied to Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), which was accepted for the years 2025-2029.