Experimental Economics - Topics

Aim of the course: This course aims to introduce students to the fundamentals of experimental economics. It provides a solid grounding in the experimental methodology— covering design principles, implementation, and data analysis—and o?ers an overview of major research areas that have recently attracted significant scholarly interest. Through the discussion of both classic and contemporary studies, students will gain an understanding of how experiments are used to test economic theories, explore behavioral regularities, and inform policy design. 

Grading: 

  • 25% class participation
  • 25% group presentation
  • 50% final presentation

Group presentation: about 15 min; each member of the group must present; focus on motivation, design and main results. A final slide discussing possible limitations of the paper is welcome.

Final presentation: each participant will be assigned a paper and will have to give a 15 min presentation including:

  1. Brief summary of the research question and experimental design
  2. Methodological aspects you found clever
  • List methodological features you consider noteworthy.
  • For 2–3 features, briefly explain why they are important (a short paragraph for each is su?icient).
  1. Methodological aspects you found unconvincing or limiting
  • List aspects you believe could have been done di?erently.
  • For 2–3 features, explain why they are not optimal and how they might limit the paper’s relevance. You may also propose alternative approaches.           

Detailed syllabus 

Topic 1 – Trends and Replication (November 4th) Required readings:

Falk, A., & Heckman, J. J. (2009). Lab experiments are a major source of knowledge in the social sciences. Science, 326(5952), 535-538. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1168244  

Uri, S., Joe, S., & Leif, N. (2023, June 17). Data Falsificada (Part 1): “Clusterfake”. Data Colada (Colada 109). https://datacolada.org/109

Additional readings:

Brodeur, A., Lé, M., Sangnier, M., & Zylberberg, Y. (2016). Star Wars: The empirics strike back. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 8(1), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20150044

Camerer, C. F., Dreber, A., Forsell, E., Ho, T.-H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., …

Wu, H. (2016). Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in economics. Science, 351(6280), 1433–1436. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf0918  

Fréchette, G. R., Sarno?, K., & Yariv, L. (2022). Experimental economics: Past and future.

Annual Review of Economics, 14, 777–794. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics081621-124424

Huber, C., Dreber, A., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Weitzel, U., … Holzmeister, F. (2023). Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(23), e2215572120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215572120

Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22(11), 1359–1366. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611417632  

 

Topic 2 – Other Regarding Preferences and Fairness (November 6th) Required readings:

Fehr, E., Epper, T., & Senn, J. (2023). Other-regarding preferences and redistributive politics.

University of Zurich, Department of Economics Working Paper. 

Additional readings:

Almås, I., Cappelen, A.W. and Tungodden B (2020) Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans More Meritocratic and E?iciency-Seeking than Scandinavians? Journal of Political Economy, 128:5, 1753-1788: https://doi.org/10.1086/705551  

Cappelen, A. W., Falch, R., and Tungodden, B. (2020). Fair and unfair income inequality, Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, 2020 

Fehr, E., and Schmidt, K. M. (2005). The Economics of Fairness, Reciprocity and Altruism – Experimental Evidence and New Theories, Munich Discussion Paper, No. 2005-20. https://doi.org/10.5282/ubm/epub.726  

Herrmann, B. et al. (2008) Antisocial Punishment Across Societies. Science 319,13621367: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1153808  

Rustagi, D., Engel, S., & Kosfeld, M. (2010). Conditional Cooperation and Costly Monitoring Explain Success in Forest Commons Management. Science, 330(6006), 961–965.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40931871  

 

Topic 3 – Voting and Social Media (November 11th)  Required readings:

Bail et al. (2018) Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization. PNAS, 115 (37), 9216-9221: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1804840115   

Chen, Y. and Yang D. Y. (2019) The Impact of Media Censorship: 1984 or Brave New World? American Economic Review, 109 (6): 2294-2332: https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20171765  Additional readings:

Bursztyn, Leonardo, Davide Cantoni, David Y. Yang, Noam Yuchtman, and Y. Jane Zhang. (2021) Persistent Political Engagement: Social Interactions and the Dynamics of Protest Movements. American Economic Review: Insights, 3 (2): 233– 50: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aeri.20200261  

Charles A. Holt. Markets, Games, and Strategic Behavior: An Introduction to Experimental Economics, Chapter 19 

Gerber, A.S., and Greenx D.P. Field Experiments on Voter Mobilization: An Overview of a

Burgeoning Literature, Chapter 9, in Banarjee A.V. and Duflo E. Handbook of Economic Field Experiments, volume 1 Group presentation:

Bursztyn, L., Handel, B., Jiménez-Durán, R., & Roth, C. (forthcoming). When product markets become collective traps: The case of social media. American Economic Review. https://www.nber.org/papers/w31771   

 

Topic 4 – Information Provision Experiments, Social Norms, and Gender (November

17th)

Required readings:

Bursztyn, L., González, A. L., & Yanagizawa-Drott, D. (2020). Misperceived social norms:

Women working outside the home in Saudi Arabia. American Economic Review, 110(10), 2997-3029: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180975  Additional readings: 

Andre, P., Boneva, T., Chopra, F. & Falk, A. (2024). Misperceived Social Norms and Willingness to Act Against Climate Change: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01468 Group presentation:

Babcock, L., Recalde, M. P., Vesterlund, L., & Weingart, L. (2017). Gender di?erences in accepting and receiving requests for tasks with low promotability. American Economic Review, 107(3), 714–747. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20141734  

 

Topic 5 – Mistakes and Motivated Beliefs (TBA) Required readings:

Zimmermann, F. (2020). The dynamics of motivated beliefs. American Economic Review, 110(2), 337–361. 

 

 

Additional Readings: 

Amelio, A., & Zimmermann, F. (2023). Motivated memory in economics—A review. Games, 14(1), 15. https://doi.org/10.3390/g14010015  

Serra-Garcia, M., & Gneezy, U. (2021). Mistakes, overconfidence, and the e?ect of sharing on detecting lies. American Economic Review, 111(10), 3160–3183. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191295