Experimental Economics

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Experimental Economics provides powerful tools to answer questions in social sciences and humanities, and has guided many policies with its solid empirical contributions. This class introduces experimental methods commonly used in economics and how these methods quantify variables that are hard to measure and isolate causal effects. The class will cover lab, lab-in-the-field, field, and online experiments as well as audit studies that are used in labor economics (race, gender, and beauty), development economics (education, health, managerial capital and small business growth), social norms (trust, risk and loss aversion, fairness, reciprocity), social dilemma (cooperation, public goods, common pools, political institutions), matching market (organ donor, marriage, school, job matching), finance (auctions, herding, moral hazard), and equilibrium concepts (price and quantity competitions). Students will learn the theoretical background and applications (as well as strengths and weaknesses) of each experimental method and how they are implemented by participating each game.