The Handbook of Experimental Economic Methodology, edited by Guillaume R. Fréchette and Andrew Schotter, aims to confront and debate the issues faced by the growing field of experimental economics. For example, as experimental work attempts to test theory, it raises questions about the proper relationship between theory and experiments. As experimental results are used to inform policy, the utility of these results outside the lab is questioned, and finally, as experimental economics tries to integrate ideas from other disciplines like psychology and neuroscience, the question of their proper place in the discipline of economics becomes less clear. This book contains papers written by some of the most accomplished scholars working at the intersection of experimental, behavioral, and theoretical economics talking about methodology. It is divided into four sections, each of which features a set of papers and a set of comments on those papers. The intention of the volume is to offer a place where ideas about methodology could be discussed and even argued. Some of the papers are contentious---a healthy sign of a dynamic discipline---while others lay out a vision for how the authors think experimental economics should be pursued. This exciting and illuminating collection of papers brings light to a topic at the core of experimental economics. Researchers from a broad range of fields will benefit from the exploration of these important questions.

The Handbook of Experimental Economic Methodology, edited by Guillaume R. Fr chette and Andrew Schotter, aims to confront and debate the issues faced by the growing field of experimental economics. For example, as experimental work attempts to test theory, it raises questions about the proper relationship between theory and experiments. As experimental results are used to inform policy, the utility of these results outside the lab is questioned, and finally, as experimental economics tries to integrate ideas from other disciplines like psychology and neuroscience, the question of their proper place in the discipline of economics becomes less clear. This book contains papers written by some of the most accomplished scholars working at the intersection of experimental, behavioral, and theoretical economics talking about methodology. It is divided into four sections, each of which features a set of papers and a set of comments on those papers. The intention of the volume is to offer a place where ideas about methodology could be discussed and even argued. Some of the papers are contentious---a healthy sign of a dynamic discipline---while others lay out a vision for how the authors think experimental economics should be pursued. This exciting and illuminating collection of papers brings light to a topic at the core of experimental economics. Researchers from a broad range of fields will benefit from the exploration of these important questions.

This volume offers a comprehensive review of experimental methods in economics. Its 21 chapters cover theoretical and practical issues such as incentives, theory and policy development, data analysis, recruitment, software and laboratory organization. The Handbook includes separate parts on procedures, field experiments and neuroeconomics, and provides the first methodological overview of replication studies and a novel set-valued equilibrium concept. As a whole, the combination of basic methods and current developments will aid both beginners and advanced experimental economists.

This is the first book that examines the diverse range of experimental methods currently being used in the social sciences, gathering contributions by working economists engaged in experimentation, as well as by a political scientist, psychologists and philosophers of the social sciences. Until the mid-twentieth century, most economists believed that experiments in the economic sciences were impossible. But that’s hardly the case today, as evinced by the fact that Vernon Smith, an experimental economist, and Daniel Kahneman, a behavioral economist, won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. However, the current use of experimental methods in economics is more diverse than is usually assumed. As the concept of experimentation underwent considerable abstraction throughout the twentieth century, the areas of the social sciences in which experiments are applied are expanding, creating renewed interest in, and multifaceted debates on, the way experimental methods are used. This book sheds new light on the diversity of experimental methodologies used in the social sciences. The topics covered include historical insights into the evolution of experimental methods; the necessary “performativity” of experiments, i.e., the dynamic interaction with the social contexts in which they are embedded; the application of causal inferences in the social sciences; a comparison of laboratory, field, and natural experiments; and the recent use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in development economics. Several chapters also deal with the latest heated debates, such as those concerning the use of the random lottery method in laboratory experiments.

This textbook provides a hands-on and intuitive overview of the methodological foundations of experimental economics. Experimental economic research has been an integral part of economic science for quite some time and is gaining more and more attention in related disciplines. The book addresses the design and execution of experiments, the evaluation of experimental data and the equipment of an experimental laboratory. It illustrates the challenges involved in designing and conducting experiments and helps the reader to address them in practice.

Economic Methodology explores the status and character of economics as a social science and introduces students to philosophical issues underlying modern science. Approaching the subject as philosophy of science for economists, the authors use the historical developments in philosophy of science to frame this introduction to the field of economic methodology. By doing this they strengthen students' understanding of economics as a science to enhance their reasoning skills, introducing them to the wider philosophical issues surrounding our understanding of the area.

Economic methodology has traditionally been associated with logical positivism in the vein of Milton Friedman, Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos and Thomas Kuhn. However, the emergence and proliferation of new research programs in economics have stimulated many novel developments in economic methodology. This impressive Companion critically examines these advances in methodological thinking, particularly those that are associated with the new research programs which challenge standard economic methodology. Bringing together a collection of leading contributors to this new methodological thinking, the authors explain how it differs from the past and point towards further concerns and future issues. The recent research programs explored include behavioral and experimental economics, neuroeconomics, new welfare theory, happiness and subjective well-being research, geographical economics, complexity and computational economics, agent-based modeling, evolutionary thinking, macroeconomics and Keynesianism after the crisis, and new thinking about the status of the economics profession and the role of the media in economics. This important compendium will prove invaluable for researchers and postgraduate students of economic methodology and the philosophy of economics. Practitioners in the vanguard of new economic thinking will also find plenty of useful information in this path-breaking book.

Ever since the inception of economics over two hundred years ago, the tools at the discipline’s disposal have grown more and more more sophisticated. This book provides a historical introduction to the methodology of economics through the eyes of economists. The story begins with John Stuart Mill's seminal essay from 1836 on the definition and method of political economy, which is then followed by an examination of how the actual practices of economists changed over time to such an extent that they not only altered their methods of enquiry, but also their self-perception as economists. Beginning as intellectuals and journalists operating to a large extent in the public sphere, they then transformed into experts who developed their tools of research increasingly behind the scenes. No longer did they try to influence policy agendas through public discourse; rather they targeted policymakers directly and with instruments that showed them as independent and objective policy advisors, the tools of the trade changing all the while. In order to shed light on this evolution of economic methodology, this book takes carefully selected snapshots from the discipline’s history. It tracks the process of development through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, analysing the growth of empirical and mathematical modelling. It also looks at the emergence of the experiment in economics, in addition to the similarities and differences between modelling and experimentation. This book will be relevant reading for students and academics in the fields of economic methodology, history of economics, and history and philosophy of the social sciences.

Over the past two decades, experimental economics has moved from a fringe activity to become a standard tool for empirical research. With experimental economics now regarded as part of the basic tool-kit for applied economics, this book demonstrates how controlled experiments can be a useful in providing evidence relevant to economic research. Professors Jacquemet and L'Haridon take the standard model in applied econometrics as a basis to the methodology of controlled experiments. Methodological discussions are illustrated with standard experimental results. This book provides future experimental practitioners with the means to construct experiments that fit their research question, and new comers with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of controlled experiments. Graduate students and academic researchers working in the field of experimental economics will be able to learn how to undertake, understand and criticise empirical research based on lab experiments, and refer to specific experiments, results or designs completed with case study applications.

Written by well-established researchers in behavioural economics, this Research Agenda illustrates the application of incentivised decision-making experiments, highlighting how this can add a new and novel dimension to social science research. Informative and timely, it explores how experiments are being used by pioneers in a diverse range of fields when research questions may not be amenable to field studies, vignettes or surveys.