Experimental Economics: Hard Science Or Wasteful Tinkering?  

Oleh:

Starmer, Chris

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: The Economic Journal (EBSCO) vol. 109 no. 453 (Feb. 1999), page 5-16.
Fulltext: 5.pdf (137.79KB)

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What can we learn from experimental economics? Let me put my cards on the table. I am convinced that experiments have the potential to make a signi®cant contribution to knowledge in economics. As I see it, experiments provide an exciting test-bed for economic theory, a vehicle for examining whether the predictions of theory hold; and where they do not, the results of experiments can often provide useful data from which to develop new theories. As a practising experimentalist, it would be extremely tempting to use this space to promote my art by presenting examples of `success' stories in experimental economics. For example, there are reassuring bed-time stories that economists can tell their children at night about a happy on-going relationship between economic theory and experimentation. Perhaps the most obvious choice would be the remarkable success of equilibrium predictions in `market experiments'.1 While it would be misleading to suggest that every prediction of economic theory has worked in simulated market environments, they often do, and successes have been particularly striking in cases where there is, as yet, no well-developed theory to explain how agents get to the predicted equilibria. I could tell this story, but I will not: besides, it has already been told by others rather better placed to tell it well.2 I intend to focus on one area of experimental research where there are some clear and persistent con¯icts between theory and evidence. The area concerned is the (descriptive) theory of choice under risk. In my view the theory in this area has advanced during the last two decades, at least in part as a consequence of experimentation. At the same time, experimental evidence seems to challenge some of the most basic assumptions of economic theorising. A good part of my concern here is to ask what we should make of this state of affairs.

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