This paper reviews experiments in macroeconomics, pointing out the theoretical justifications, the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. We identify two broad classes of experiments: general equilibrium and partial equilibrium experiments, and emphasize the idea of theory testing that is...

We experimentally study the impact of public opinion poll releases on voter turnout and welfare in a participation game. We find higher turnout rates when polls inform the electorate about the levels of support for various candidates than when polls are prohibited. Distinguishing between allied...

This study reports an experiment that examines whether groups can better comply with theoretical predictions than individuals in contests. Our experiment replicates previous findings that individual players significantly overbid relative to theoretical predictions, incurring substantial losses....

This paper uses a laboratory experiment to probe the proposition that property emerges anarchically out of social custom. We test the hypothesis that whalers in the 18th and 19th century developed rules of conduct that minimized the sum of the transaction and production costs of capturing their...

We use laboratory experiments to compare allocation rules in uniform price divisible good auctions. “Standard” and “uniform” allocation rules admit different types of low-price equilibria, which are eliminated by a “hybrid” rule. We observe little evidence of revenue differences...

We investigate the impact of wage comparisons for worker productivity. We present three studies which all use three-person gift-exchange experiments. Consistent with Akerlof and Yellen's (1990) fair wage-effort hypothesis we find that disadvantageous wage discrimination leads to lower efforts...

We experimentally study auctions versus grandfathering in the initial assignment of pollution permits that can be traded in a secondary spot market. Low and high emitters compete for permits in the auction, whereas permits are assigned for free under grandfathering. In theory, trading in the...

We present a field experiment to assess the effect of own and peer wage variations on actual work effort of employees with hourly wages. Work effort neither reacts to an increase of the own wage, nor to a positive or negative peer comparison. This result seems at odds with numerous laboratory...

This paper reports the results of experiments designed to test the theory of the optimal composition of prizes in contests. In the aggregate the behavior of subjects is consistent with that predicted by the theory, but we find that such aggregate results mask an unexpected compositional effect...

It is still an open question when groups perform better than individuals in intellectual tasks. We report that in a company takeover experiment, groups placed better bids than individuals and substantially reduced the winner’s curse. This improvement was mostly due to peer pressure over the...