Content
The course provides an introduction to the experimental methods used in economics to study behavior under controlled conditions. It is divided into two parts. The first part considers the rationale for experimentation in economics; it examines several of the ways in which experiments have been used; and it seeks to appraise the contribution experiments have made, and can be expected to make, in a variety of areas of economics, such as individual decision making, markets, coordination, negotiation, charitable giving, public goods games, social preferences, and lying behavior. The second part concerns experimental methods, and focuses on how to design an experiment. Students will learn how to formulate their own behavioral research questions and hypotheses, and develop an experimental design for collecting and analyzing data.
Goal, Approach, and Learning Outcomes
The course provides graduate research training in experimental economics, and is useful either for students wishing to become academic economists or for students wishing to develop a career in a wide range of fields where knowledge of behavioral or experimental economics can prove useful, such as teaching, finance, banking, business, consulting and government. The course also promotes the following transferable skills which are essential for any graduate job: oral and written communication skills (by presenting and writing a critical review of cutting-edge work in experimental economics), critical thinking skills (by critically reading, discussing, and summarizing breakthrough work in experimental economics), analytical skills (by assessing the analysis of experimental papers), and research skills (by identifying a research question and designing a research experiment).
Upon completion of the course, we expect students to be:
• Familiar with some of the major areas of research in experimental economics;
• Able to understand, critically assess and analyze experimental papers;
• Able to understand some of the strengths and limitations of experiments in economics;
• Able to sketch the design of a simple research experiment in economics.
The teaching approach is research-led. Each week, the lecture focuses on a few ‘key readings’ which all students should have read in advance. Students are asked to open the discussion with a brief critical summary of one of these key readings, followed by questions by the other students. As a part of the course assessment, each student is required to develop a project concerning the design of a research experiment. Students will receive a one-to-one guidance on the project throughout the course. Finally, students will learn about the experimental methods and facilities used by the researchers at the Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique (GATE), and be invited to attend workshops and seminars in experimental economics organized by GATE.
