James Murphy

Rasmuson Chair of Economics

University of Alaska Anchorage

murphy@uaa.alaska.edu

This short course will provide students with an overview of the experimental literature that addresses issues in environmental and natural resource economics, and will prepare students to design and run their own economics experiments.

Topics

Public Goods Experiment (Vecolab)

• Chaudhuri, A. (2011). Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: a selective survey of the literature. Experimental Economics, 14(1), 47-83.
• Armin Falk and James J. Heckman. 2009. Lab Experiments are a Major Source of Knowledge in the Social Sciences. Science. 326:535. October 23.

Experimental Economics & the Environment

• Brown, G., & Hagen, D. A. (2010). Behavioral economics and the environment. Environmental and Resource Economics, 46(2), 139.
• Horowitz, John K., Kenneth E. McConnell and James J. Murphy. 2013. Behavioral Foundations of Environmental Economics and Valuation. In Handbook on Experimental Economics and the Environment. John List and Michael Price, editors. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
• List, J. A., & Price, M. K. (2016). The use of field experiments in environmental and resource economics. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 10(2), 206-225.
• Sturm, B. and Weimann, J. 2006. Experiments in Environmental Economics and Some Close Relatives. Journal of Economic Surveys. 20(3):419-457.

Double Auction Experiment (Kiviq)

• Smith, V. L. (1962). An experimental study of competitive market behavior. Journal of political economy, 70(2), 111-137.

Experimental design

• Camerer, C.F., Dreber, A., Forsell, E., Ho, T.H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Almenberg, J., Altmejd, A., Chan, T. and Heikensten, E., 2016. Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in economics. Science, 351(6280):1433-1436.
• Croson, R., 2005. The method of experimental economics. International Negotiation, 10(1):131-148.
• Croson, R., 2002. Why and how to experiment: Methodologies from experimental economics. U. Ill. L. Rev., 2002(4):921-945.
• List, J. A. (2011). Why economists should conduct field experiments and 14 tips for pulling one off. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3), 3-16.
• List, J.A., Sadoff, S. and Wagner, M., 2011. So you want to run an experiment, now what? Some simple rules of thumb for optimal experimental design. Experimental Economics, 14(4):439-457.

Common Pool Resource Experiment (MobLab)

• Ostrom, E. (2006). The value-added of laboratory experiments for the study of institutions and common-pool resources. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. 61:149-163.
• Anderies, J.M. and Janssen, M.A. (2016). Sustaining the Commons, 2^nd edition.

Lab-in-Field Experiments: CPRs

• Cárdenas, J.C., 2009. Experiments in environment and development. Annu. Rev. Resour. Econ., 1(1), pp.157-182.
• Cárdenas, J.C. and Ostrom, E., 2004. What do people bring into the game? Experiments in the field about cooperation in the commons. Agricultural systems, 82(3), pp.307-326.

Bargaining games (MobLab)

• Chaudhuri, A. (2009). Experiments in Economics. New York: Routledge, Ch 2.
• Chaudhuri, A. (2009). Experiments in Economics. New York: Routledge, Ch 3.

Pick.Click.Give. Field Experiment

• John A. List, James J. Murphy, Michael K. Price, Alexander G. James. 2019. Do Appeals to Donor Benefits Raise More Money than Appeals to Recipient Benefits? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment with Pick.Click.Give. Working paper.
• Steven D. Levitt and John A. List. 2007. What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World? Journal of Economic Perspectives. 21(2):153-174.
• Glenn W. Harrison and John A. List. 2004. Field Experiments. Journal of Economic Literature. XLII: 1009-1055.

Useful books

• Chaudhuri, A. 2009. Experiments in Economics. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-47631-7.
• Nicholas Bardsley, Robin Cubitt, Graham Loomes, and Peter Moffatt. 2009. Experimental Economics: Rethinking the Rules. Princeton University Press.
• Camerer, C. 2013. Behavioral Game Theory. Princeton University Press. ISBN: 978-0691090399
• Davis, D.D. and Holt, C.A. 1993. Experimental Economics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 0-691-04317-5.
• Guillaume R. Fréchette and Andrew Schotter, editors. 2015. Handbook of Experimental Economic Methodology. Oxford University Press.
• Daniel Friedman and Shyam Sunder. 1994. Experimental Methods: A Primer for Economists. Cambridge University Press.
• Daniel Friedman and Alessandra Cassar. 2004. Economics Lab: An Intensive Course in Experimental Economics. Routledge.
• Alan S. Gerber and Donald P. Green. Field Experiments: Design, Analysis and Interpretation. W.W. Norton & Company.
• Francesco Guala. 2005. The Methodology of Experimental Economics. Cambridge University Press.
• Holt, C.A. 2019. Markets, Games and Strategic Behavior: An Introduction to Experimental Economics, 2^nd edition. New York: Pearson Addison Wesley. ISBN: 978-0691179247.
• Jacquemet, N. and L’Haridon, O. 2019. Experimental Economics: Method and Applications. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107629776
• Kagel, J.H. and Roth, A.E. 1995. The Handbook of Experimental Economics. Princeton University Press. ISBN: 978-0691058979
• Kagel, J.H. and Roth, A.E. 2016. The Handbook of Experimental Economics, volume 2. Princeton University Press. ISBN: 978-0691139999
• John A. List and Michael Price, editors. 2013. Handbook on Experimental Economics and the Environment. Edward Elgar.
• Peter G. Moffat. 2016. Experimetrics, Econometrics for Experimental Economics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
• Elinor Ostrom. 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton University Press.
• Elinor Ostrom, Roy Gardner, and James Walker. 1994. Rules, Games and Common Pool Resources. The University of Michigan Press.
• Amy R. Poteete, Marco A. Janssen, Elinor Ostrom. 2010. Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice. Princeton University Press.
• Charles R. Plott and Vernon L. Smith. 2008. Handbook of Experimental Economics Results. North-Holland.
• Vernon L. Smith. 2009. Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms. Cambridge University Press.