Experimental practices in economics: A methodological challenge for psychologists? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Experimental Methods in Economics and Psychology: A Comparison
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015
This article compares the use of experiments as a research method in economics and psychology. We outline the most important differences between the two fields in terms of their use of experimental methods. The purpose of the article is twofold. First, to provide an overview of areas where economic experiments differ from traditional psychological experiments. Second, to debate experimental economics in relation to experiments in other social sciences.
The Experimental Study of Behaviour In Economics
The study of behavior in economics using paid experiments has a history of about half a century. This article tracks not just the chronological history of the field of experimental economics but the intellectual history of the way agent behavior has been studied in economics since the advent of the rational-actor framework in the nineteenth century. I examine the methodologies that form the bedrock of experimentation in economics, their origins, their advantages and their antecedents. I also explore the manner in which experimental economics has enabled theories and frameworks from fields in social sciences like psychology, anthropology and political science to influence the way behavior is modeled in economics, leading to newer theoretical understandings that go far beyond the traditional view of the agent as homo-economicus, i.e. - a self interested rational maximizer interested in merely increasing his material wealth.
Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics
2006
Behavioral economics aims to provide more realistic psychological foundations for economic models. Experimental methods can contribute to this effort by providing the ability to identify causal processes and motivations that can be confounded in field settings. The essays in this dissertation examine three critical issues in behavioral economics using lab and field experiments. The first two essays examine two core elements of economic rationality; expected utility theory and Bayesian updating. The essays consider, respectively, ambiguity, and information cascades, in environments in which limitations of the theories can be studied. The third essay examines a contracting game in which other-regarding preferences are explicitly considered. Decision making under ambiguity has been of interest to economists since the 1920's (Knight (1921), Keynes (1921)). It has received renewed attention due to the work
Mind & Society, 2010
Can human social cognitive processes and social motives be grasped by the methods of experimental economics? Experimental studies of strategic cognition and social preferences contribute to our understanding of the social aspects of economic decisions making. Yet, papers in this issue argue that the social aspects of decision-making introduce several difficulties for interpreting the results of economic experiments. In particular, the laboratory is itself a social context, and in many respects a rather distinctive one, which raises questions of external validity.