Mobile Lab

Our mobile lab consists of 16 OQOs with accompanying mice and keyboards, an access point and 2 laptops. The mobile lab can fit easily into two pieces of carry-on luggage. This allows us to conduct a teaching experiment, accommodating up 30 people with the participants working in pairs, anywhere we can fly.

The format of a typical teaching experiment runs as follows, first the participants are put directly into the experiment, just as our subjects in the lab would be. It is important for the participants to experience the experiment before they are given an explanation of the results of the research as this could bias the results. After the participants have finished with their experiment they are given a talk on the results of the laboratory research. Finally they are shown their results from the experiment they participated in for comparison.

Each teaching session typically lasts one to two hours. Using this format promotes a fun and open discussion on the topic.

Teaching experiments offered:

• Asset Market
• Auctions: English/Dutch Clock, English Outcry(hard/soft ending), 1st/2nd price sealed bid auction
• Coase Bargaining Game
• Combinatorial Clock Auction
• Common Pool Resource Fishing Game
• Election Auction
• Electricity Market
• Extensive Form Game
• Gasoline Market
• Normal Form Game
• Posted Offer Market
• Price Gouging
• Public Good
• Trade and Specialization Game
• Ultimatum Game

Contact Bart Wilson for more information.

Recent Workshops

University of Alaska Anchorage, High School Teacher Workshop, "Discovering Economics in the Classroom with Experimental Economics and the Scottish Enlightenment".  June 2009.

Institute for Humane Studies, James Madison University, "Personal and Impersonal Exchange", "Mine and Thine: How the Laws of Human Nature Create Wealth", and "Economics at the Pump". June 2009.

Institute for Regulatory Law and Economics, Aspen CO, "Simple-Offer vs. Complex-Offer Auctions in Deregulated Electricity Markets", "Turning Off the Lights".  May 2009

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History & Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation, Wichita KS, "How a Market Works", "The Natural History of Property" and "Mine and Thine: Exploring How Property Rights and Laws of Human Nature Create Wealth".  October 2008.

Foundation for Teaching Economics & Liberty Fund, Orange CA, "How a Market Works", "Exchange and Specialization as a Discovery Process" and "Personal Exchange".  August 2008.

 

Koch Foundation, Washington DC, "How a Market Works" and "Economics at the Pump".  June 2008.