Ananish Chaudhuri's Behavioral & Experimental Economics Page

Ananish Chaudhuri an assistant professor of Economics, in the Department of Economics, located in the College of Business and Economics, at Washington State University.

Course Description:

The systematic evaluation of economic theories under controlled laboratory conditions is a relatively recent development, but in the last twenty years or so the use of experimental methods to evaluate economic and psychological propositions has become increasingly widespread. They have also come to provide an important foundation for bridging the gap between economic theory and observation.

This course is designed t (1) undertake a systematic evaluation of existing experimental literature; (2) instruct students on how to design suitable experiments in attempting to test a theoretical conjecture; (3) teach students how to collect data in a controlled setting and how to analyze the data to arrive at meaningful conclusions.

The proposed course will focus primarily on decision and choice issues by analyzing game theoretic experiments and individual decision-making experiments. Experimental work in these two areas has significant overlap with cognitive psychology. Experiments dealing with issues such as Prisoner’s Dilemma, evolution of conventions over time, learning behavior in human beings are of interest to psychologists as well. The course will involve efforts to apply economic and cognitive principles to psychological issues such as the nature of the self, judgement, addiction, and other real world issues.

Required readings:

Text: Thinking Strategically by Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff, New Edition, 1993, W.W. Norton

Articles:

Camerer, C. (1995) Individual Decision Making, in J. Kagel and A. Roth (eds.) Handbook of Experimetal Economics, Princeton University Press, NJ.

Heyman, G.M. (1996). Resolving the contradictions of addiction. Behavioral and Brain Science, 19, 561-610.

Kihlstrom, J.F. & Klein, S.B. (1997). Self-knowledge and self-awareness. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 818, 5-18.

Ledyard, J. (1995) Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research in J. Kagel and A. Roth (eds.) Handbook of Experimetal Economics, Princeton University Press, NJ.

Rachlin, H. (1997). Self and self-control. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 818, 85-98.

Rachlin, H. (1989). Judgement, decision, and choice: A cognitive-behavioral synthesis. New York: Freeman. (Chapter 3: Judgement).

Course Outline (Details are subject to change).

Week Topic/Due date Reading

May 8 Introduction to Theory of Games Class-notes; Chapters

(Form groups for project) 1-4 in Dixit and Nalebuff

May 15 Bargaining, Coordination, Chapters 5, 7, 9 and 11 in

Public goods Dixit & Nalebuff; Ledyard

May 22 Theories of Self Kihlstrom; Rachlin (1997)

& Judgement Rachlin (1989)

(Research idea due, May 22)

May 29 Midterm Exam (29)

A Theory of Addiction Heyman (Completion of Data gathering)

June 5 Decision-making under risk Camerer

(Prelim Draft of Paper, June 7)

June 12 Group Presentations (12, 13, 14)

Paper is due at beginning of class (12)

Final Exam (15)