Experimental Economics in the Classroom

If you are frustrated with how little students seem to retain from your standard lecture classes, you may wish to mix some classroom experiments into the schedule. Although the idea of using experiments in class has been around since the time of Chamberlin [1948], most applications are the product of recent research in experimental economics. This research is not intended to facilitate teaching, but the spinoffs include easy-to-explain setups in which the students are placed into the market or economic decision-making situation being studied. Even non-experimentalists have realized that these laboratory exercises can be effective teaching devices. Classroom experiments are short, interactive exercises designed to facilitate understanding of key economic ideas. For example, students can be allowed to negotiate trades in a market where it is possible to compare their behavior with equilibrium predictions. In this manner, their first exposure to a particular economic concept is experiencing the economic incentives and forces first hand. In effect, they are producing the data that (with luck and carefully structured discussion) can allow them to discover relevant economic principles for themselves. We have found that this "bottom-up" participatory approach to learning can raise student interest and motivation. We believe that effective experiments can induce learning at a deeper level that results from being convinced about the usefulness of an otherwise abstract economic theory. This chapter describes how to design and run teaching experiments, with simple props (no computers necessary). We begin with examples of basic market and game setups. Then we provide some hints about how to make such experiments more effective. Finally, we survey the various types of experiments that have been developed and the admittedly limited research on the effectiveness of this approach.