Introduction to Experimental Economics

Teachers

Included in study programs

Teaching results

Understanding
Distinguishing between causality and correlation
Competence
Critical thinking, identification of alternative explanations of a particular economic phenomenon, ability to ask a research question
Skills
Designing an experiment to answer a research question

Indicative content

Experimental economics precepts: Nonsatiation, saliency, parallelism, privacy, dominance Anonymity – the importance of anonymity for collecting data in economics experiments
Generosity – evidence of other-regarding behavior
Trust – an inherent feature present in any economic transaction
Reciprocity in economic decisions – repaying kind actions with kindness and punishing hostile actions
Gift Exchange and Contract – applications of reciprocity in contract enforcement
Psychological Games – extension of traditional game theoretic models to allow for modeling of unobservable motives
Group Identity and group decision making
Competition – driver of efficiency
Markets, market institutions, and market behavior

Support literature

Experimental Methods – A Primer for Economists by Daniel Friedman and Shyam Sunder, Cambridge University Press 2004

Requirements to complete the course

20% class exercise: specifying a research question
80% exam
- 40% class project: The primary focus of the course is on applying experimental methods, which can only be done through a project,
- 40% written exam

Student workload

• Lectures 52 h, tutorials + experiment 26 h, class exercise 6 h, studying for the exam 36 h, class project 36 h

Language whose command is required to complete the course

slovak

Date of approval: 11.03.2024

Date of the latest change: 27.01.2022