ECONOMIC SCIENCE INSTITUTE Economic Science Institute
 
 

What Is Experimental Economics

Chapman students sign up to participate in experiments for cash.

 

Economic Science Institute

In January 1956, Professor Vernon L. Smith conducted his first experiment with an introductory economics class because he believed there had to be a better way to teach economics. That experiment led him to develop a new way to teach and research economics, and it became the contribution for which the Chapman University professor was awarded a share of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Science. In 2008, Prof. Smith and his colleagues Profs. John Dickhaut, David Porter, Stephen Rassenti, and Bart Wilson founded the Economic Science Institute (ESI) at Chapman.

So, what is ESI and experimental Economics? Learn more... 

The Wall Street Journal

From Bubble to Depression?

Featured in The Wall Street Journal April 6, 2009, by Dr. Steven Gjerstad and Dr. Vernon L. Smith

 

Bubbles have been frequent in economic history, and they occur in the laboratories of experimental economics under conditions which -- when first studied in the 1980s -- were considered so transparent that bubbles would not be observed.

 

We economists were wrong: Even when traders in an asset market know the value of the asset, bubbles form dependably. Bubbles can arise when some agents buy not on fundamental value, but on price trend or momentum. If momentum traders have more liquidity, they can sustain a bubble longer…

 

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Science Daily

Be Your Best Friend If You'll Be Mine: Alliance Hypothesis For Human Friendship

Featured in Science Daily, June 3, 2009. Based on an article by Dr. Peter DeScioli of Chapman University and Dr. Robert Kurzban of University of Pennsylvania.  

 

University of Pennsylvania psychologists studying the cognitive mechanisms behind human friendship have determined that how you rank your best friends is closely related to how you think your friends rank you. The results are consistent with a new theory called the Alliance Hypothesis for Human Friendship, distinct from traditional explanations for human friendship that focused on wealth, popularity or similarity…

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The Economic Science Institute Team at Chapman University. Back  row: Bart J. Wilson, Stephen Rassenti, David Porter, Front row: Vernon L. Smith and John Dickhaut.


 

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