Experimental Practices in Economics: Performativity and the Creation of Phenomena

This contribution provides a brief overview and discussion of the role of experiments in economics. It is argued that economic experiments have convinced economists and the public of the existence of phenomena that have been outside the scope of economics. The success of these experiments is partly due to the performative nature of experiments. To develop this argument, examples of experiments are provided, and two different sets of criticisms of experiments are discussed. The paper concludes with a discussion of which questions economists should address and how experiments can be used to study policy-relevant questions.