Conducting a Double Oral Auction Experiment in a High School Computer Lab : A Pilot Study

A classroom experiment is an effective device to introduce and illustrate new economic concepts. This paper describes the author's experience implementing the classic double oral auction experiment in a high school computer lab, in four classes, with students trading in a virtual market for books, using commercial online software designed for college use. The goal was to run each class through this experiment for five rounds, using a standard lab with no special software, in one class period of 50 minutes. I randomly selected one school experiment, and compared the results with a college class that had done the same experiment, according to three indicators - transactions history, aggregate efficiency, and distribution of excess gain. By the fifth round the school students' performance was comparable to that of college students. I conclude that commercial web-based college level economic experiments offer school teachers a viable way to perform experiments