We present a simple classroom principal-agent experiment that can effectively be used as a teaching device to introduce important concepts of organizational economics and contracting. In a first part, students take the role of a principal and design a contract that consists of a fixed payment...

The introduction of the concept of network effects is useful at the principles level to facilitate discussions of the determinants of monopoly, the need for standards in high-tech industries, and the general complexity of real-world competition. The author describes a demonstration and an...

The authors present a classroom experiment designed to illustrate key concepts of third-degree price discrimination. By participating as buyers and sellers, students actively learn (1) how group pricing differs from uniform pricing,(2) how resale between buyers limits a seller's ability to price...

This paper describes an individual choice experiment that can be used to teach students how to correctly account for opportunity costs in production decisions. Students play the role of producers who require a fuel input and an emissions permit for production. Given fixed market prices, they...

The aim of this investigation is to display how the use of classroom experiments may be a good pedagogical tool to teach the Nash equilibrium (NE) concept. The basic game for our purposes is a repeated version of the Beauty Contest Game (BCG), a simple guessing game whose repetition lets...

Classroom experiments and exercises served as a one-day introduction to economics for students who felt insecure about taking first year business classes. The first experiment addresses demand in isolation, while the second addresses supply. A third integrates supply, demand and equilibrium in a...

classEx is a novel software that allows lecturers to carry out experiments in the classroom with an instantaneous graphical illustration of findings. Standard experiments with multiple treatments, monetary incentives, roles, groups, rounds and stages are available in a ready-made format. A back...

Edward Chamberlin, who initiated classroom market experiments, used the results of these experiments to argue that competitive equilibrium performs poorly in explaining the outcomes of real markets. Vernon Smith altered the design of Chamberlin's experiment to increase the amount of price...

Edward Chamberlin conjectured that the number of trades in realistic trading systems is likely to exceed that predicted by competitive equilibrium theory. He supported this conjecture by data from a large number of classroom experiments and with a plausible argument based on a numerical example....

The authors present a simple classroom game in which students are randomly designated as employers, purple workers, or green workers. This environment may generate “statistical†discrimination if workers of one color tend not to invest because they anticipate lower opportunities in the...