Experimental Methods in Economics

Description:
This three-day workshop targets students who have no or very little prior experience with laboratory experiments. You learn the basics of experimental methodology, rules you have to observe, and a lot about practical issues you have to think about when planning an experiment. The main part of the workshop is an introduction into programming simple experiments with z-Tree as well as running a session in practice.

Day 1 Lecture-style teaching: experimental methodology, running a session

• What kind of research questions can we answer with an experiment?
• Advantage of experiments: having control
• Important rules:
  • No deception!
  • Incentives
• External validity
• Design aspects
• Practical issues
• Hypothesis testing

Day 2 & 3: Hands-on programming in z-Tree

• Fundamentals
  • What can we do with z-Tree?
  • How does z-Tree work?
  • Installation and test environment
  • Structure of a program
• Individual decisions
  • Layout
  • Basic programming
  • Data of the experiment
• Interactive decisions
  • Statements and functions in z-Tree
  • Loops
  • Matching and role assignment
  • Different tables in z-Tree
  • Chat

Time & venue:
9.-11.11.2023, 9:00-17:00, University of Potsdam, Campus Griebnitzsee | Building 7, Room 2.41

Exam:
Programming an experiment and presenting it.