Experimental Economics
Theory and Practice
Published on 5. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
784 pages
978-0-226-82067-5 (ISBN)
Description
A landmark practical guide from the twenty-first-century pioneer in economics.
Experimental economics-generating and interpreting data to understand human decisions, motivations, and outcomes-is today all but synonymous with economics as a discipline. The advantages of the experimental method for understanding causal effects make it the gold standard for an increasingly empirical field. But until now the discipline has lacked comprehensive and definitive guidance for how to optimally design and conduct economic experiments.
For more than 30 years, John A. List has been at the forefront of using experiments to advance economic knowledge, expanding the domain of economic experiments from the lab to the real-world. Experimental Economics is his A-to-Z compendium for students and researchers on the ground floor of designing, conducting, analyzing, and interpreting data that they generate. List seeks not only to guide readers on how to develop and implement their experimental projects-everything from design to administrative and ethical considerations-but to help them avoid all the mistakes he's made in his career, too. Experimental Economics codifies its author's refined approach to the design, execution, and analysis of laboratory and field experiments. It is a milestone work poised to become the definitive reference for the next century of economics (and economists).
Experimental economics-generating and interpreting data to understand human decisions, motivations, and outcomes-is today all but synonymous with economics as a discipline. The advantages of the experimental method for understanding causal effects make it the gold standard for an increasingly empirical field. But until now the discipline has lacked comprehensive and definitive guidance for how to optimally design and conduct economic experiments.
For more than 30 years, John A. List has been at the forefront of using experiments to advance economic knowledge, expanding the domain of economic experiments from the lab to the real-world. Experimental Economics is his A-to-Z compendium for students and researchers on the ground floor of designing, conducting, analyzing, and interpreting data that they generate. List seeks not only to guide readers on how to develop and implement their experimental projects-everything from design to administrative and ethical considerations-but to help them avoid all the mistakes he's made in his career, too. Experimental Economics codifies its author's refined approach to the design, execution, and analysis of laboratory and field experiments. It is a milestone work poised to become the definitive reference for the next century of economics (and economists).
Reviews / Votes
"A wonderful and accessible guide to field and lab experiments from one of the true leaders in the field." -- Stefanie Stantcheva | Harvard University "John A. List has given us an ambitious work that provides a more comprehensive framework for lab and field experiments as well as their discovery methodology than any other text that currently exists. Experimental Economics is poised to displace its predecessors and become the new standard reference for the field." -- Vernon Smith | Chapman University and winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics "This advanced textbook offers a rigorous exploration of the methodological design of laboratory and field experiments. It provides a sophisticated roadmap for designing experiments that are both internally valid and externally meaningful-making it essential reading for graduate students and applied researchers alike." -- Ernst Fehr | University of Zurich "Experimental Economics is an amazing resource that helps not only by providing instructional materials but also by guiding the instructor on how to structure the course itself. It is common to be torn between shaping an experimental economics class into either a methods or topics course, but List's work allows for both, as the 'running examples' are perfect for exposing students to different topics of application while presenting the methodological framework common to those topics." -- Seda Ertac | Koc University "I don't say this lightly: I think this book will change how the next generation of empirical economists designs research." -- Robert Metcalfe | Columbia UniversityMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
64 halftones, 8 line drawings, 82 tables
Dimensions
Height: 253 mm
Width: 175 mm
Thickness: 48 mm
Weight
1582 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-82067-5 (9780226820675)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
John A. List is the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a research associate of NBER. He is the author, most recently, of the best-selling book, The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale.