ExCEN - Experimental Economics Center¹
at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

ExCEN, the EXperimental Economics CENter, was founded in 2006 to support research, teaching, and policy applications involving controlled experiments with decision makers. The Center's central objective is to promote the development and application of economics and related academic disciplines as empirical science. Ongoing research in the Center involves development of economic theory supported by data.

Teaching and research support facilities developed and maintained by the Center include the Experimental Economics Laboratory and EconPort.  EconPort is the economics component of the National Science Digital Library. The National Science Foundation supports the ongoing EconPort national dissemination workshops that teach college and university faculty from around the nation how to use EconPort in teaching. As a component of the NSF Digital Library, EconPort is available worldwide. A new online system was deployed for the recruitment of subjects and participants. Core support for the Center comes from the Georgia Research Alliance and the state government. Professor James C. Cox is the founding Director, Professor Susan Laury is Associate Director, and J. Todd Swarthout is Operations Director.

In This Section:

• Teaching
• Professional Activities (See also Publications)
• Working Papers
• Sponsored Projects (See also Appendix)
• Visitors & Seminar Series
• Media and Internet Acclaim

Teaching

Experimental Economics Lab

ExCEN is committed to its students who are proficient in their discipline. Graduate students Artidiatun Adji, Roberta Calvet, Daniel Hall, William Holmes and Angelino Viceisza participated in Experimental Economics Laboratory activities and designed research experiments relative to their disciplines. Economics is a major component of the undergraduate curriculum, and the integration of experiments into economics courses has proven beneficial in supporting student learning in applying the principals of economics to real world situations. Numerous undergraduate students participated in economics experiments held in the Laboratory during the Spring and Fall semesters. One hundred fifteen (115) experiments were held this year by faculty and graduate students comprised of approximately 25 students per session. An internal grant was awarded to J. Todd Swarthout and Susan Laury, co-PI, for instructional innovation in improving student learning and student retention at the undergraduate level. “Improving Student Learning through the use of Class-based Economics Experiments,” effective August 1, 2006-June 30, 2007, has developed, and will continue to develop, educational material relevant to introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics courses. This material is part of the EconPort digital library.

During 2006, the following activities were held in the Experimental Economics Laboratory:

• Ninety-one Computerized Experiments were held that involved 194 hours;
• Thirteen Hand-Run Experiments were held that took 37.5 hours; 
• Eleven Teaching Experiments equaled 27.5 hours;
• One Experimental Economics Class Teaching totaled 92 hours; 
• Thirty-four Software Testing Sessions required 77.75 hours;
• Thirteen Experimental Research Meetings took 17 hours;
• Three Miscellaneous/Guest Viewing totaled 4.5 hours; and
• Five Maintenance Sessions included 43 hours. 

The core faculty of ExCEN are James C. Cox, Susan K. Laury, J. Todd Swarthout, Vjollca Sadiraj, Ragan Petrie and Paul J. Ferraro. Affiliate faculty include James Alm, Shelby Frost, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, Mark Rider, Laura Taylor, Sally Wallace, Lucy F. Ackert (Kennesaw State University), Gregory S. Berns (Emory University), C. Monica Capra (Emory University), Marco Castillo (Georgia Institute of Technology), Bryan K. Church (Georgia Institute of Technology), Geral P. Dwyer, Jr. (Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta), Ann B. Gillette (Kennesaw State University), Clinton D. Kilts (Emory School of Medicine), Charles Noussair (Emory University), Li Qi (Agnes Scott College), James K. Rilling (Emory University), Galen R. Sevcik (Georgia State University), and Kristy L. Towry (Emory University). Krawee Kevin Ackaramongkolrotn is Senior Research Associate, and Kathleen Banks is Assistant Director of Administration.

EconPort

EconPort was moved in February from the University of Arizona upon the arrival of its creators, James C. Cox and J. Todd Swarthout, at Georgia State. Funded by the National Science Foundation, it provides opportunities for training professors in the use of experimental economics to strengthen undergraduate and graduate Economics classes. It provides active learning, and is accessible to the Net Generation of students (and faculty) via the Internet.

A new Portable Laboratory was created for EconPort to conduct experiments at remote sites and off-campus locations. It consists of 35 notebooks and specially designed travel cases. EconPort was featured at the workshops held in conjunction with the Economic Science Association International Conference in Atlanta and the Western Economics Association International conference in San Diego in June.  Faculty use the Portable Lab to conduct off-campus research and experiments.

Workshop I: ExCEN hosted a two-day EconPort Workshop in the Andrew Young School to 32 interested university and college professors from around the State of Georgia, June 7-8, 2006. Participating faculty and staff included James Cox, Todd Swarthout, Susan Laury, Vjollca Sadiraj, Paul Ferraro, Ragan Petrie, Kevin Ackaramongkolrotn and Kathleen Banks.

Workshop II: Held at the Western Economics Association International conference in San Diego, California, June 29, 2006, 26 faculty and educators from the nation and overseas. The portable laboratory was utilized for the sessions. Participating faculty and staff included James Cox, Todd Swarthout, Susan Laury, Kevin Ackaramongkolrotn and Kathleen Banks.

EconPort Website Statistics: From January 1, 2006, through December 12, 2006, the average daily number of Pageviews for the EconPort website was 1,793. A 'Pageview' is defined as a request from a visitor's browser for a displayable web page. There were 425 average daily number of Sessions. A 'Session' is defined as a series of clicks on a website by an individual visitor during a specific period of time. It is initiated when the visitor arrives at the site, and it ends when the browser is closed or there is a period of inactivity.

Professional Research Activities and Publications

The center’s core faculty published 21 articles in professional journals, eight articles in book chapters, had six papers under review or in revise and resubmit status, and had 20 papers in progress during the 2006 Calendar Year. Four faculty members were invited to present seven papers; nine papers were presented at professional conferences, and two international presentations were made. (Please refer to the Publications section of the School’s report by faculty name for more information.) 

Experimental Economics Working Papers:

Faculty Research

James C. Cox

Journal Articles:
"Revealed Altruism," Econometrica, with Daniel Friedman and Vjollca Sadiraj, revise and resubmit status.

"Implications of Trust, Fear, and Reciprocity for Modeling Economic Behavior,” Experimental Economics, with Klarita Sadiraj and Vjollca Sadiraj, forthcoming.

"On Modeling Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods," Public Finance Review, with Vjollca Sadiraj, forthcoming.

"Coordination of Purchasing and Bidding Activities Across Posted Offer and Auction Markets," Journal of Information Systems and e-Business Management, with Daniel Zeng and Moshe Dror, forthcoming.

"A Tractable Model of Reciprocity and Fairness," Games and Economic Behavior, with Daniel Friedman and Steven Gerstad, forthcoming.

"Small- and Large-Stakes Risk Aversion: Implications of Concavity Calibration for Decision Theory," Games and Economic Behavior, with Vjollca Sadiraj, Vol. 56, No.1, pp. 45-60, July 2006.

"Barking Up the Right Tree: Are Small Groups Rational Agents?" Experimental Economics, with Stephen C. Hayne, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 209-222, September 2006.

"Assigning Intentions when Actions Are Unobservable: The Impact of Trembling in the Trust Game" Southern Economic Journal, with Cary A. Deck, Vol. 73, No. 2, pp. 307-314, October 2006.

"When Are Women More Generous than Men?" Economic Inquiry, with Cary A. Deck, Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 587-598, October 2006.

Book Chapters:
"EconPort: Creating and Maintaining a Knowledge Commons," chapter in Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, MIT Press, 2006.

"Trust, Fear, Reciprocity, and Altruism: Theory and Experiment," chapter in Advances in Experimental Economics, Springer-Verlag, forthcoming.

Invited Papers:
"On the Empirical Plausibility of Theories of Risk Aversion," co-authored with Vjollca Sadiraj, Quebec City, Canada: Laval University.

"IT Enhanced Market Design and Experiments," presented to the National Science Foundation HSD Principal Investigators Meeting, Washington, D.C., September 19, 2006.

Contributed Papers:
"Implications of Trust, Fear, and Reciprocity for Modeling Economic Behavior," co-authored by Klarita Sadiraj and Vjollca Sadiraj, presented to the Economic Science Association International Meeting, Georgia State University, June 9, 2006.

"Direct Tests of Models of Social Preferences and a New Model," co-authored with Vjollca Sadiraj, presented to the Western Economic Association International Annual Conference, San Diego, Calif., June 29, 2006.

"Revealed Altruism," presented to the North American Regional Meeting of the Economic Science Association, Tucson, Ariz., September 29, 2006.

"Empirical Plausibility of Theories of Risk Aversion," presented to the Southern Economic Association Annual Meeting, Charleston, S.C., November 18, 2006.

Paul Ferraro

Refereed scholarly journal articles:
"Stylized Facts and Identification in Public Goods Experiments: The confusion confound," Econometrica, with Christian Vossler, under review.

"Effect of Race on Married Women? Retirement Planning," The Journal of Women & Aging, with Kwaw Andam, revise and resubmit.

"The Effectiveness of Listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act: An econometric analysis using matching methods," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, with Craig McIntosh and Monica Ospina, revise and resubmit.

"Asymmetric Information and Contract Design for Payments for Environmental Services," Ecological Economics, forthcoming.

"Cultural Diversity, Discrimination and Economic Outcomes: an experimental analysis," Economic Inquiry, with Ronald G. Cummings, forthcoming.

"Voluntary Development of Environmental Management Systems: Motivations and Regulatory Implications," Journal of Regulatory Economics, with Toshihiro Uchida, forthcoming.

"Stock Market Reactions to Information Disclosure: new evidence from Japan? Pollutant Release and Transfer Register," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, with Toshihiro Uchida, forthcoming. 

"Integrating Economic Costs into Conservation Planning," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, with Robin Naidoo, Andrew Balmford, Taylor Ricketts, Michel Rouget and Stephen Polasky,Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 681-687.

"Money for Nothing? A call for empirical evaluation of biodiversity conservation investments," PLoS Biology, with Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 482-488.

"Abordagens Analiticas na Avaliac? de Impactos Reais de Programas de Conservac?" Megadiversidade, with Erin Sills, Subhrendu Pattanayak, Keith Algers, Vol. 2, No. 1, forthcoming.

"Response to Comment by Peter C.H. Pritchard," Marine Turtle Newsletter, Vol. 111.

"Adolescent Time Preferences and Educational Outcomes," with Marco Castillo, Jeffrey Jordan, Ragan Petrie, in progress.

"Testing Game Theory with Nash Agents," in progress.

"Opportunities and Pitfalls in Using Economic Incentives for Ecosystem Services," with Stephen Farber, Paul Morling, Robin Naidoo, Janis Paavola,  Douglas Yu, Rolf de Groot, Sean Mowatt, in progress.

"The Insurance Value of Biodiversity," with Brendan Fisher, Paul Morling, Shahid Naeem, in progress.

"Do Investors Really React to Information from the Toxics Release Inventory? An econometric reassessment," with Jason Delaney, in progress.

"Using Virtual Agents to Differentiate among Altruism, Strategic Behavior and Error in the Ultimatum Game," with Ju Hsieh, in progress.

Articles, Essays, Chapters in Books:
"Can Public Goods Experiments Inform Policy? Reducing confusion among experimental subjects," with Christian Vossler, Experimental Methods, Environmental Economics, T. Cherry, S. Kroll and J. Shogren, eds., Routledge Press, forthcoming.

"Experimental approaches to understanding inter-cultural conflict over resources," with Ronald G. Cummings, Using Experimental Methods in Environmental and Resource Economics, John List, ed., Edward Elgar Press, forthcoming.

"Economics of Biodiversity Conservation in Developing Countries," with Heidi J. Albers, Economic Development and Environmental Sustainability: new policy options, M. Toman and R. Lopez, eds., Oxford University Press, pp. 382-411.

"Cost-effective Conservation: A review of what works to preserve biodiversity," Resources for the Future Reader in Environmental Policy and Resource Management, W.E. Oates, ed., Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future Press, pp. 163-170.

"Integrating Biophysical and Economic Information to Guide Land Conservation Investments," Economics and Contemporary Land Use Policy: Development and Conservation at the Rural-Urban Fringe, Robert Johnson and Stephen Swallow, eds., Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future Press, pp. 267-290.

Working Papers:
"Know Thyself: incompetence and overconfidence."

"Costa Rica's Payments for Environmental Services: using matched samples, linked surveys and remote sensing to evaluate program effectiveness," with Erin Sills, Rodrigo Arriagada, Subhrendu Pattanayak, Silvia Cordero, Luis Carrasco, Kwaw Andam.

Invited Papers (Conference):
"Direct Payments to Protect Biodiversity and the Need for Empirical Program Evaluation."

Susan Laury

Publications
"Altruism Spillovers: Are Behaviors in Context Free Experiments Predictive of Altruism Toward a Naturally-Occurring Public Good?" with Laura Taylor, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, forthcoming.

Working Papers
"Under-Insurance Against Low-Probability Losses: New Experimental Evidence," with Melayne M.  McInnes and Todd Swarthout, December 1, 2006.

"Pay One or Pay All: Random Selection of One Choice for Payment," December 1, 2006.

Invited Papers (other college / university)
"Under-Insurance Against Low-Probability Losses: New Experimental Evidence," co-authored with Melayne McInnes and Todd Swarthout, presented November 6, 2006, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

International Activities:
Presented “Under-Insurance Against Low-Probability Losses: New Experimental Evidence,” co-authored with Melayne McInnes and Todd Swarthout, to the Foundations of Utility and Risk Conference, Rome, Italy, June 24, 2006.
      
Visiting Fellowship, Adelaide, Australia, Susan K. Laury, McMaster, “Developing and Testing the Role of Salinity and Other Market-Based Instruments to Improve Agricultural and Environment al Outcomes in the Face of Climatic Variability.”

Ragan Petrie

Refereed scholarly journal articles
"Estimating the Value of Water Use Permits: A Hedonic Approach Applied to Farmland in the Southeastern U.S.," with Laura Taylor, Land Economics, forthcoming, August 2007.

"Beauty, Gender and Stereotypes: Evidence from Laboratory Experiments," with James Andreoni, under review.

"Revealing Preferences for Fairness in Ultimatum Bargaining," with James Andreoni and Marco Castillo, under review.

"Time Preferences in Children: Experimental Evidence from Georgia," with Paul Ferraro, Marco Castillo, Jeffrey Jordan, in progress.

"Gender and Race Differences in the Allocation of Attention: A Field Experiment," with Marco Castillo, in progress.

"Race Differences in Competitive Attitudes," with Muriel Niederle, Carmit Segal, Lise Vesterlund, in progress.

"Individual Motives for Giving in Public Goods Experiments," with Susan Laury, in progress.

Working Papers
"Face Value," with Catherine Eckel.

"Discrimination in the Warplace: Evidence from a Civil War in Peru," with Marco Castillo.

"The Effect of Household Composition on Schooling Decisions in Nicaragua," with Michael Ariona. 

"Trusting Appearances and Reciprocating Looks: Experimental Evidence on Gender and Race Preference."

"Inconsistent Choices in Lottery Experiments: Evidence from Rwanda," with Sarah Jacobson.

"The Endowment Effect and Market Experience: Experimental Evidence from Rwanda?" with Sarah Jacobson.

"Ethnic and Social Barriers to Cooperation: Experiments Studying the Extent and Nature of Discrimination," with Marco Castillo and Maximo Torero.

"Discrimination in the Lab: Experiments Exploring the Impact of Performance and Appearance on Sorting," with Marco Castillo.

Articles/Other Writings
"Are Workers Willing to Pay for Fairness? Using Laboratory Experiments to Study Economic Behavior," an empirical study example in a widely-used labor economics textbook that uses previous research as its source (Source: Andreoni, Castillo, and Petrie, "What do Bargainers Preferences Look Like? Experiments with a Convex Ultimatum Game," American Economic Review, 93 (June 2003), 672-685.)  Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy, 9th edition, Ehrenberg, Ronald and Robert Smith, pp. 384-385.

Vjollca Sadiraj

Refereed scholarly journal articles:
"A computational electoral competition model with social clustering and endogenous interest groups as information brokers," with Jan Tuinstra and Frans van Winden, Public Choice, Vol. 127, No. 1, pp. 169-187, October 2006.

"Modeling Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods: Small- and Large-Stakes Risk Aversion: Implications of Concavity Calibration for Decision Theory," with James C. Cox, Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 45-60, July 2006.

"Implications of Trust, Fear and Reciprocity for Modeling Economic Behavior," with James C. Cox and Klarita Sadiraj, Experimental Economics, forthcoming.

Other Writings:
"Direct Tests of Models of Social Preferences and a New Model," with James C. Cox, Experimental Economics Center Working Paper 206-13.

"Let Me Vote! An Experimental Study of Vote Rotation in Committees," with Ronald Bosman, Philipp Maier, Frans van Winden, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Research Paper No. 06-30.

"Revealed Altruism," with James C. Cox and Daniel Friedman, Experimental Economics Center Working Papers No. 2006-09.

Invited Papers (Conference):
"Efficiency, Equity and Inequality Aversion," with James C. Cox, presented to the International Meeting of the Economic Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia, June, 2006.

"Let me vote!" co-authored with Ronald Bosman, Philipp Maier, Frans van Winden, presented to the North American Meeting of Economic Science Association, Tucson, AZ, October 1, 2006.

Invited Papers (other college / university):
"Direct Tests of Models of Social Preferences and a New Model; Revealed Altruism," with James C. Cox and Daniel Friedman, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies working paper, February 22, 2006.

Discussant / Commentator:
"Exploring Voting Anomalies Using a Demand Revealing Random Price Voting Mechanism," presented to the North American Meeting of Economic Science Association Meeting, Tucson, Arizona, October 1, 2006.

J. Todd Swarthout

Contributed Papers:
"An Example of Dramatic Change in the Set of Equilibria when a Continuous Model is Implemented Discretely," co-authored with Mark Walker, presented to the Economic Science Association 2006 North American Regional Meeting, Tucson, Ariz., September 30, 2006.

"EconPort: Creating and Maintaining a Knowledge Commons," co-authored with James C. Cox, presented to the Western Economic Association International Annual Conference, discussant, San Diego, Calif., June 30, 2006.

"Do Classroom Experiments Affect the Number of Economics Enrollments and Majors?" presented to the Western Economic Association International Annual Conference, San Diego, Calif., June 30, 2006. 

"Checking-out and Enquiring Passengers: Personality Types in the Traveler’s Dilemma," presented to the Economic Science Association 2006 North American Regional Meeting, Tucson, Ariz., September 30, 2006.

Articles, Essays, Book Chapters:
"EconPort: Creating and Maintaining a Knowledge Commons," with James C. Cox, Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, eds., MIT Press, 2006.

Working Papers:
"Under-Insurance Against Low-Probability Losses: New Experimental Evidence," with Susan K. Laury and Melayne Morgan McInnes.

Sponsored Projects (See also Appendix)

National Science Foundation: “Disseminating the Use of Experiments in Economics with the EconPort Digital Library,” James Cox and J. Todd Swarthout, DUE-0442660, 2005-2008, $899,998.

National Science Foundation: “Collaborative Proposal: IT-Enhanced Market Design and Experiments,” James Cox, IIS-0527563, 2006-2009, $249,979.

National Science Foundation: “Choosing Among Risky Alternatives: An Experimental Investigation of the Impact of Insurance Markets on Biases in Decision-Making,” Susan Laury, SES-0213974, 2002-2006, $89,158.

National Science Foundation: “Game Theory and Social Interactions: A Virtual Collaboratory for Teaching and Research,” Susan Laury, 2001-2007, $200,349.

Inter-American Development Bank: “Ethnic and Social Barriers to Cooperation: Experiments Studying the Extent and Nature of Discrimination in Urban Peru,” Ragan Petrie, 2005-2006, $40,000.

Internal Awards:
Georgia State University, RPG Provost grant: “Improving Student Learning through the use of Class-based Economics Experiments,” Todd Swarthout, PI, with Susan Laury, 2006-2007, $49,000.

Georgia State University Research Foundation: Economics Conference Support, Susan Laury, $3,000.

Georgia State University Research Initiation Grant: “Prejudice and the Perpetuation of Differences: Experiments Exploring the Impact of Performance and Appearance on Sorting,” Ragan Petrie, 2005-2006, $10,000.

Georgia State University Advancement of Women Faculty: “Trusting Appearances and Reciprocating Looks: Experiments on Gender and Race Preferences,“ Ragan Petrie and Susan Laury, 2005-2006, $6,000.

Pending award
National Science Foundation: Collaborative Research: Competitive Market Experiments for the Microeconomics Curriculum, J. Todd Swarthout, $79,177.

Other Research Initiatives & Activities

ExCEN faculty, Paul Ferraro, Susan Laury, and Ragan Petrie served on the organizing committee for the International Meeting of the Economic Science Association held at Georgia State University June 8-11, 2006. The Center, and the Andrew Young School, co-sponsored the event.

Seminar Series & Visitors

ExCEN hosted a seminar series for faculty, and students including Master's and Ph.D. candidates.

Experimental Economics Seminar Series

February 22
Vjollca Sadiraj presented “Direct Tests of Models of Social Preferences and a New Model” and “Revealed Altruism.” 

March 15
David Reiley (University of Arizona) presented "The War for the Fare: How Driver Compensation Affects Bus System Performance."

March 21
Susan Laury presented "Applications of Experimental Economics to Nonprofit Fund Development" for the Nonprofit Studies Program Brown-Bag Seminar Series.

March 2
Price Fishback (University of Arizona) presented "The Effect of Internal Migration on Local Labor Markets: American Cities During the Great Depression" for the Economics Seminar Series.

April 14
Duncan James (Fordham University) presented “The Stability of Risk Preference Parameter Estimates within the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak Procedure," an Environmental and Experimental Economics Seminar.

April 19
Rod Garratt (University of California-Santa Barbara) presented "Bank Runs as Coordination Failures: An Experimental Study."

September 22
Glenn Harrison (University of Central Florida) presented "Expected Utility Theory and Prospect Theory: One Wedding and a Decent Funeral," an Experimental Economics and Microeconomic Theory Seminar.

October 20
Frans van Winden (University of Amsterdam) presented "Dynamic Choice, Independence and Emotions," an Experimental Economics and Microeconomic Theory Seminar.

September 18-20
Daniel Zeng (University of Arizona) conducted research relating to the collaborative project “IT Enhanced Market Design and Experiments” with James Cox and Vjollca Sadiraj.

Media and Internet Acclaim

The center received the attention of national press with an article printed in the “NetWatch” section of Science, Vol. 311, March 31, 2006: “Economics Lab—Economists don’t use test tubes or gene-sequencing machines, but they can run experiments on questions such as how we make choices when there’s uncertainty about the outcome. Hosted by Georgia State University in Atlanta, EconPort brims with resources for researchers and teachers interested in economic experiments. A virtual textbook explains basics such as game theory and decision-making. Visitors can also consult a glossary and prowl a links catalog loaded with software, papers, tutorials, and other resources. The site also includes a feature to help users set up and run online experiments such as auctions. www.econport.org.” James C. Cox and J. Todd Swarthout are the creators of EconPort.

The EconPort web site (http://www.econport.org) was selected by Thomson Scientific for inclusion in Current Web Contents™. Thomson Scientific, a leader in the information industry, selects scholarly web sites complementing the journal coverage in Current Contents Connect, the Web of Science, and other ISI Web of Knowledge applications.

1. For a complete listing of AYSPS Active Research Sponsored Grants from CY2006, see the Appendix: Report on External Funding.