Experimental economics and the artificiality of alteration

Bardsley, N. (2005) Experimental economics and the artificiality of alteration. Journal of Economic Methodology, 12 (2). pp. 239-251. ISSN 1350-178X doi: 10.1080/13501780500086115

Abstract/Summary

A neglected critique of social science laboratories alleges that they implement phenomena different to those supposedly under investigation. The critique purports to be conceptual and so invulnerable to a technical solution. I argue that it undermines some economics designs seeking to implement features of real societies, and counsels more modesty in experimental write‐ups. It also constitutes a plausible argument that laboratory economics experiments are necessarily less demonstrative than natural scientific ones. More radical sceptical conclusions are unwarranted.