Essays in macroeconomics and experiments

This dissertation consists of four chapters on empirical and experimental macroeconomics and other experimental topics. Chapter 1 uses a laboratory experiment to test the predictions of a dynamic global game designed to capture the role of information and coordination in speculative attacks. The game has a large number of heterogeneously informed agents deciding whether to attack a status quo; the status quo in turn collapses if enough agents choose to attack. The theory predicts that the equilibrium size of the attack is decreasing in both the underlying strength of the status quo and the agents' cost of attacking. Furthermore, the knowledge that the status quo has survived a past attack decreases the incentive to attack, implying that a new attack is possible only if agents receive new information. Our experimental evidence supports these theoretical predictions. We identify the agents' beliefs about the actions of others to be the main channel through which the relative strength of the status quo, the cost of attacking, and learning impact observed behavior. However, we also find that the subject's actions are overly aggressive relative to the theory's predictions. Once again, we find that the excess aggressiveness in actions stems from the aggressiveness of their beliefs about others' actions. Chapter 2 studies gender inequality in performance. One explanation for this inequality is that the genders perform differently under competitive conditions, as previous experimental studies have found a significant gender gap in competitive tasks that are perceived to favor men. We use a verbal task that is perceived to favor women and find no gender difference under competition per se.