Experimental Economics – Topics

Course description

This course introduces the students to frontier research topics in experimental economics. Experiments are now an accepted tool for empirical research in Economics, and they actually cover an impressive range of areas in all social sciences. Both the student who plans to actively conduct experiments and the student who want to use the results of experimental studies done by others will benefit from this course.
Its goal is to familiarize graduate students from EDLE and the Ph.D in Economics with recent behavioral advances. An array of applications will serve to illustrate the potential of this scientific methodology (caveat: the choice of topics is heavily biased by the research interests of the instructor).
The emphasis will be on discussing what was the research questions that motivated the paper, highlighting the pro and cons of the methodology, and the lesson learnt from the study.

Topics

The course will open with an introduction to what experiments are and touch upon two classic areas, markets and decisions under risk. It will then delve into other substantive topics such as cross-cultural experiments, group-decision making, and issues of cooperation with applications to monetary institutions and global dilemmas such as climate change.

  1. A market experiment in practice
  2. Introduction to experimental economics
  3. Eliciting individual preferences
  4. Studying regional divides through experiments
  5. Group decision making
  6. Markets, rationality and other-regarding preferences
  7. Experiments with monetary systems
  8. Experiments in environmental economics

Teaching methods
I will make use of in-class experiments and slide presentations. I encourage students to be active during the class with questions and comments on the material presented. All students are expected to read the required papers.

  • Assessment methods
    Active participation in class, assignment completion, and in-class presentations: 40% of the class grade. There will be 3-4 assignments, which should be individual work, unless otherwise instructed.
  • Take-home final examination: 60% of the class grade. The final exam will take place in December or January and will include a series of open questions based on the papers and book chapters listed in the syllabus and covered in class. The student must show a command of the material, not simply memory skills. Your answers will come from your own independent work, without accessing any online resources or written material, except lecture notes and the articles. You should not communicate with others regarding the exam questions or answers.

Syllabus
A detailed list of the reading material will be available on the first meeting.