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Eco 7391 Sec. 2.

Experimental Economics

Professor Catherine Eckel


Phone: 972-883-4949
E-Mail: eckelc@utdallas.edu

Laboratory experiments are an increasingly important component of a well-trained economist's toolkit.


Many of the best dissertations written in economics consist of "tools" chapters, a collection of methods
for approaching a particular problem. This course is designed to familiarize students in economics,
business and social science disciplines with the use of experiments to answer research questions. We will
study the methodology of experiments, including experimental design, statistical design and accepted
procedures, as well as important papers in selected fields. Experimental research is conducted in virtually
every field, from game theory to macroeconomics. The fields we cover in class will be tailored to the
interests of the participants.

Experimental techniques also make excellent teaching tools: when students in the classes you will be
teaching can “see” a theory in action it is much easier for them to grasp. As part of this course we will
discuss ways to successfully incorporate exercises based on experimental methods into undergraduate
teaching.

The textbooks for the course will be


Davis and Holt, Experimental Economics (Princeton University Press, 1993)
Kagel and Roth, The Handbook of Experimental Economics (Princeton University Press, 1994)
The following book also has lots of useful advice for conducting experiments:
Friedman and Sunder, Experimental Methods: A Primer for Economists. (Cambridge University Press,
1994)
Additional papers will be available on WebCT.

Course requirements:
a. Class Presentation 25%
Each student will be required to present one or two of the papers within a topic area. The purpose of these
presentations is to improve students’ ability to speak in front of an audience and teach. Presentations will
be evaluated - criteria include:
1) Preparation
2) Ability to isolate important results and contributions from the paper
3) Ability to engage the class in an inte llectually stimulating manner

b. Exam on methodology 25%


This exam will cover the introductory chapters and materials on design and control, and will be given in
class about six weeks into class

c. Short research responses 25%


Each student must write one of these for one paper for each class period. These are very short, 1-2 page
summaries of the paper. You should state:
1. What is the paper about? What is its main topic area?
2. Describe briefly the methodology/approach.
3. Summarize the main findings.

d. Research Proposal, 25%. There are two options for this assignment: group and individual. If you
are in the second year or more of the PhD program, the individual option is recommended, though not
required. This proposal will present motivation and a preliminary design for an experimental project. In
early April you will all be required to come by and discuss your idea for the proposal with me. If your
ideas are good, we can work further on it in an independent study next summer/fall, and I will fund you
up to $500 to run your experiments. (This would make a really good third year paper.)

Course Plan for Doctoral Seminar in Experimental Economics

Week 1- What are experiments and what are they good for? This lecture introduces experimental
economic s, and gives an overview of some of the areas where experimental research has proved
especially useful.

Week 2 -3 Experimental design and control. – In these two weeks we will discuss these topics focusing
on the problem of translating a theory into a laboratory environment, and producing a clean test
of the theory.

Week 4 - Methodogy exam

Topics for remaining weeks may include the following, or some other things if there is interest.:

I. Fairness and trust in economics: Tests of simple games in the lab have produced surprising
results that have spawned research agendas in experimental economics and economic theory. We will
read papers and discuss the development if this research area.

II. In addition to the first topic, we will examine another research area. Think about which one
you would like to do, and we will decide later. Here are some possibilities.

Auctions and market institutions : Early experiments showed the importance of trading
institutions in contrast to economic theory. This research has led to important developments in designing
markets for trading particular goods (like wholesale electricity, or space on the space shuttle). We will
read papers on different trading institutions (double auction, English auction, sealed-bid auctions, etc.)
and discuss how experimental results have been used to test auction theory.

Public goods and commons problems : One of the prominent results coming out of experimental
research is that people find ways to cooperate when there are gains to cooperation, in contrast to the
predictions of game-theoretic models of these situations. We will explore this research area, including
theoretical developments and field experiments.

Utility Theory: Experimental tests of the axioms of expected utility theory have produced some
surprising and puzzling results. We will examine the co-development of experimental research and new
theories of decision-making under uncertainty.

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