E427 & E627 - Seminar in Experimental Economics

Professors: James Walker and Arlington Williams

Prerequisites: E321 and E370 or some other intro statistics course.

This is a seminar-style course on behavioral economics and the use of laboratory experiments as a research tool in applied microeconomics.  The E427 & E627 classes meet together, but E627 students have substantially more out-of-class reading and writing assignments than E427 students.  The course begins with an overview of general principles utilized in designing, conducting, and evaluating behavior in economic experiments. The seminar focus then turns to specific application areas including: (1) market behavior and performance in alternative institutional settings, (2) allocation decisions in settings with externalities - including public goods provision and appropriation from common-pool resources, (3) decision-making in various two-person normal form games, and (4) experiments with non-human subjects. There is no text for the seminar, required readings are primarily published research papers.

Syllabus -  Second Semester 2009-2010

Sequence of Assignments and Presentations - Second Semester 2009-2010