Experimental Economics

The objective of Experimental Economics is to test the validity of economic theories, detect departures from those theories and identify patterns of behavior useful to build new theories.

Economic experiments replicate real-word incentives and are conducted either in the laboratory or in the field. They are used to assess whether people make rational decisions in individual decision settings (savings, investments, etc) and whether they behave strategically when they interact with others.

In this course, we will review the literature detailing the circumstances in which central predictions of economic theory hold and fail. The course is the experimental counterpart of ECON 606. We will also briefly describe experimental methods to learn how to interpret experimental results. We encourage interested students to attend ECON620aL/620bL to learn about procedures in more details.

This course is part of a sequence of classes that forms the core of the Behavioral Track of the MA program and the Behavioral Economics Sequence of the PhD program. It is recommended to take it with ECON 606 that Behavioral Theories of Decision Making and ECON 620 classes that offer both a practical approach of the field (methods, design of experiments, programming, statistics and econometrics, state-of-the-art research topics) and a hands-on experience.

You can read more about the Behavioral Track of the Master Program here.

• First midterm exam: TBA

• Second midterm exam: TBA

• Final Project: last week of class (Friday before 5pm)

This site contains material used during the class, resources for regular assignments and final project, additional references and useful links.