This paper discusses twenty five methodological issues covering selected areas of both micro and macroeconomics. Included on the micro side are issues related to modelling the price system, assessing its efficiency, competing models of competition, modelling technological change and economic...

In laboratory asset markets, subjects trade shares of a firm whose profits in a linked product market determine dividends. Treatments vary whether dividend information is revealed once per period or in real-time and whether the firm is controlled by a profit-maximizing robot or human subject....

This article describes experimental economics, in general, and new developments in experimental macroeconomics, in particular. The approach has a clear niche in providing evidence on economic phenomena that cannot be observed directly or that are difficult to measure. Experimental work conducted...

We explore the idea that prosocial behavior in experimental games is driven by social norms imported into the laboratory. Under this view, differences in behavior across subjects is driven by heterogeneity in sensitivity to social norms. We introduce an incentivized method of eliciting...

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy on asset trading and production in a laboratory economy. Participants play the role of household investors who make consumption, labor, and investment decisions. Introducing asset markets to the economy does not generate significant real effects....

This paper examines the effect of an improvement in property rights on a local economy. It uses the case of First Nations' modern treaties. These treaties are an important institutional reform that clarifies ownership of land and natural resources near Aboriginal communities. Using confidential...

We consider a general framework where weaker patterns of identifcation may arise: typically, the data generating process is allowed to depend on the sample size. However, contrary to what is usually done in the literature on weak identification, we do not give up the efficiency goal of...

The theory of second best established that the effect on community welfare of any one policy change varies with the specific context in which that change occurs. In paper that has been frequently quoted to justify specific policies, Ng argues that fulfilling firstbest conditions piecemeal is an...

This paper studies exchange rate volatility within the context of the monetary model of exchange rates. We assume agents regard this model as merely a benchmark, or reference model, and attempt to construct forecasts that are robust to model misspecification. We show that revisions of robust...

This paper studies decision making by agents who value optimism, but are unsure of their environment. As in Brunnermeier and Parker (2005), an agent’s optimism is assumed to be tempered by the decision costs it imposes. As in Hansen and Sargent (2008), an agent’s uncertainty about his...