Project Seminar: Experimental Economics, Winter Semester 2013/14
In the winter semester 2013/2014 the Chair of Economic Theory (Prof. Dr. Veronika Grimm) holds the annual Project Seminar on Experimental Economics. The seminar is open to Master and Doctoral Students.
The objective of the seminar is the development, execution, and analysis of an experimental research project. This includes the development of an own research question (which is appropriate for an experimental investigation), designing an experiment to investigate this question, the technical implementation of the design as well as actually conducting the experiment in the experimental laboratory (LERN), and the statistical analysis of the results. The goal of the seminar is to get to know the method of experimental economics and to get a comprehensive overview of the single steps an experimental consists of. By developing a very own small research project the seminar relates closely to scientific practice.
In a first step the students develop and present an experimental research idea (ideally in small groups). One idea will be selected and implemented by the whole seminar group. This includes the development of the experimental design, programming and organizing the experiment, and the analysis of the experimental data. The single tasks will also be distributed among small groups. Accompanying the seminar there will be a brief introduction to z-Tree, the most common experimental software, and to non-parametric statistics which is used to analyze experimental data. The experiment will be conducted in the Laboratory for Experimental Research Nuremberg (LERN). In a last step the data will be analyzed and the project will be summarized by the students in a joint paper. The seminar grades will be determined by the project proposal as well as contributions to the design development, data analysis and the final paper summarizing the project. Additionally, there will be a short compulsory homework assignment about the introduction to programming and non-parametric statistics. The seminar should result in a first joint research paper.
Summary of the seminar’s main objectives:
- Transformation of a (very own) research question into an experimental design
- Introduction to programming with z-Tree
- Preparation and execution of the experiment
- Introduction to non-parametric statistics
- Analysis of the experimental data
If you are interested in participating please send a brief application email in advance to Michael Seebauer (michael.seebauer@wiso.uni-erlangen.de).
The planned schedule for the seminar is as follows:
- First Meeting & Preliminary Discussion: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 at 10:00
in room LG 5.452 - Selection of experimental research idea (calendar week 42)
- Discussion of the experimental design (calendar week 45)
- Testing of the experimental program in the laboratory (calendar week 49)
- Execution of the experiment (calendar week 51)
- Discussion of experimental results (calendar week 4, 2014)
- Paper submission deadline (February 28, 2014)
We are looking forward to your participation!