Although the contingent valuation method has been widely used to value a diverse array of nonmarket environmental and natural resource commodities, recent empirical evidence suggests that it may not accurately estimate real economic values. The hypothetical nature of environmental valuation surveys typically results in responses that are significantly greater than actual payments. Economists ha...

One area in which experimental economics methods have been used to study operations problems is supply-chain management. We survey results from a series of human experiments based on the popular beer distribution game and find cognitive limitations on the part of managers, in particular an underweighting of the supply line. We suggest mechanisms that may alleviate this bias, including sharing i...

Although economics is not commonly thought to be an experimental science, laboratory methods are being increasingly used as economic theories become more sophisticated. It is often possible to structure payoffs and procedures so that a theory is tested on its domain, with all structural assumptions satisfied. If the theory fails, individual components can be tested; if the theory works, it can ...

In this paper we characterize firms’ lifetimes and their determinants. Unlike previous studies that use a cohort of new entrants with a short follow-up period, our dataset comprises a representative sample of the population of Spanish manufacturing firms in 1990, followed until 2000. The data were drawn from the annual survey Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales. Our results suggest that fi...

These notes provide a guide and some comments on a portion of the literature of experimental economics. They represent thoughts and criticisms. developed in the course of a seminar in experimental economics at Purdue University. The references do not constitute an e�ensive bibliography. For an excellent summary of the experimental oligopoly literature� the interested reader is urged to consult ...

In the course of coediting the Handbook of Experimental Economics it became clear to me that contemporary experimental economists tend to carry around with them different and very partial accounts of the history of this still emerging field. This project began as an attempt to merge these "folk histories" of the origins of what I am confident will eventually be seen as an important chapter in t...

The analysis of data from experiments in economics routinely involves testing multiple null hypotheses simultaneously. These different null hypotheses arise naturally in this setting for at least three different reasons: when there are multiple outcomes of interest and it is desired to determine on which of these outcomes a treatment has an effect; when the effect of a treatment may be heteroge...

The importance of personal privacy to Internet users has been extensively researched using a variety of survey techniques. The limitations of survey research are well-known and exist in part because there are no positive or negative consequences to responses provided by survey participants. Experimental economics is widely accepted by economists and others as an investigative technique that can...

Randomized experiments have become a popular tool in development economics research, and have been the subject of a number of criticisms. This paper reviews the recent literature, and discusses the strengths and limitations of this approach in theory and in practice. We argue that the main virtue of randomized experiments is that, due to the close collaboration between researchers and implement...

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