Accessibility statement

This is a site created for my doctoral course at the University of Bari, Autumn 2023.

It will be added to as the course proceeds.

Lectures

I suggest you have a quick look at each lecture before I give it. I will update them as the course proceeds. Please make sure you look at the latest version.

  1. Tuesday 24 October, 15-17
  2. Friday 27 October, 15-18
  3. Tuesday 7 November, 11-14
  4. Wednesday 8 November, 15-18

Two more may be added. Watch this space!

The presentations

Lecture 1 (MS PowerPoint , 863kb)

Lecture 2 (MS PowerPoint , 94kb)

Lecture 3 (MS PowerPoint , 169kb)

Lecture 4 (MS PowerPoint , 693kb)

Lecture 5 (MS PowerPoint , 119kb)

Lecture 6 (MS PowerPoint , 79kb)

Papers referred to in the course

  1. Epstein and Ji (PDF , 778kb) You need to read this between the third and fourth lectures.
  2. Mori et al wp 2020 (PDF , 276kb) You will need to read this before the third lecture.
  3. Grosh et al wp (PDF , 568kb) You will need to read this before the third lecture.
  4. Buso and Hey (PDF , 1,639kb) This is referred to in the fourth lecture.
  5. charness et al (PDF , 563kb). This is referred to in Lecture 4.
  6. Morone et al 2021 (PDF , 711kb) Discussed in Lecture 4.

Tasks

Before or during the second lecture I would like you to try the following task which you can do individually or in (self-appointed) teams.

  1. Take the prisoner's dilemma game:
  2. "Two prisoners are accused of a crime. If one confesses and the other does not, the one who confesses will be released immediately and the other will spend 20 years in prison. If neither confesses, each will be held only a few months. If both confess, they will each be jailed 15 years”
  3. This is a simple game, with a clearly-specified Nash equilibrium – in which both confess.
  4. Design a simple experiment to investigate its empirical validity.
  5. Concentrate on the various possible outcomes (‘20 years’, ‘15 years’, ‘a few months’ and ‘released immediately’) and consider variations in them.
  6. Think about repetitions.
  7. Anticipate your data analysis.

Before the third lecture, try the following task:

I want you to smell* one of these two papers in teams and tell me what it was trying to do and whether it succeeded.

Labor Supply Reaction to Wage Cuts and Tax Increases: A Real-Effort Experiment” Mori, Kurokawa and Ohtake, NEP Experimental Economics. This is an individual experiment. You can find the paper here: Mori et al wp 2020 (PDF , 276kb)

Selection into Leadership and Dishonest Behaviour of Leaders: A Gender Experiment” Grosh, Muller, Rau and Zhurakhovska, NEP Experimental Economics. This is a group experiment. You can find the paper here: Grosh et al wp (PDF , 568kb)

* 'smelling' means reading superficially; the abstract; the conclusions; perhaps some experimental detail. Smelling is an important thing to learn.

You should address the following questions

  1. What was the point of the experiment?
  2. Was the experimental implementation appropriate?
  3. Was the data analysis appropriate?
  4. Were there enough subjects?
  5. Were there enough tasks?
  6. Was the paper structured and written well?
  7. I will ask you to give your report at the start of the next lecture.

Before the final lecture, try the following task:

Each of you (this is an individual experiment) will come up with an idea for an experiment. You should specify:

  1. The title preferably in the form of a question).
  2. The purpose of the experiment (more than just answering the question).
  3. The type of experiment.
  4. The software you might use (if any).
  5. How you might analyse the results.
  6. Where might you submit the finished paper

John Hey

You can email me at john.hey@york.ac.uk

Find out more about John Hey