The purpose of this paper is to discuss the growing importance of experimentation in economic analysis. We present a variety of economic issues that have been explored with laboratory techniques. We also address some common objections to experimentation, as well as some of the principal lessons...

This is the first comprehensive treatment of laboratory experiments designed to evaluate economic propositions under carefully controlled conditions. While it acknowledges that laboratory experiments are no panacea, it argues cogently for their effectiveness in selected situations. Covering...

The proposed 2008 TARP auction was intended to facilitate rapid purchases by the U.S. department of Treasury of a wide array of mortgage-backed securities in order to remove these “toxic assets” from the portfolios of financially stressed banks. The Treasury had selected a Reference Price...

The possibility that asset markets could be strategically manipulated by large informed traders has fascinated social scientists and market observers for years. There is a well-known story of minions of Nathan Rothschild, who was thought to have the fastest carrier pigeons in London, selling...

In the last ten years theory (e.g., Fudenberg and Levine, 1998) and empirical data fitting have provided many ideas about how equilibria arise in games or markets. This short chapter describes a very general approach to learning in games: "experience-weighted attraction" (EWA) learning. This...

Prediction markets are markets for contracts that yield payments based on the outcome of an uncertain future event, such as a presidential election. Using these markets as forecasting tools could substantially improve decision making in the private and public sectors. We argue that U.S....

In a series of recent experiments (Davis, Millner and Reilly, 2005, Eckel and Grossman, 2003, 2005a-c, 2006), matching subsidies generate significantly higher charity receipts than do theoretically equivalent rebate subsidies. This paper reports a laboratory experiment conducted to examine...

This paper reports an experiment designed to evaluate interrelationships between strategic buyers, market power and merger-induced synergies. The experiment consists of 40 posted-offer quadropolies. Treatments include the use of simulated or human buyers, seller consolidations and merger-induced...

An experiment conducted to examine the effects of different discount formats on consumer purchases is reported. Participants made a series of purchase decisions for chocolate bars given (a) “rebates” from the listed price, (b) “matching” quantities of chocolates for each bar purchased,...