Running Behavioral Operations Experiments Using Amazon's Mechanical Turk

Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online labor market run by Amazon, provides a platform for conducting behavioral experiments; the site offers immediate and inexpensive access to a large global subject pool. In this paper, we review recent research about MTurk and test the validity of using MTurk for experiments in behavioral operations management. We used subjects from MTurk to replicate the experiments in Bolton and Katok (2008), Engelbrecht-Wiggans and Katok (2008), Loch and Wu (2008), and Bolton, Ockenfels and Thonemann (2012). Our results are similar to the originals, but we also document some important differences. MTurk appears to be an important and relevant tool for researchers in behavioral operations, but we caution researchers to restrict use of this subject pool to experiments involving short-lived stimuli and behavioral manipulations