信息学院信息讲坛（一）
一、 讲座题目：Economics in the Laboratory: An Introduction
二、 讲座时间：2008年6月2日下午 2：30-5：00
三、 讲座地点：信息楼四楼报告厅
四、 讲座内容摘要：
Not long ago, conventional wisdom in the economic community held that,
because economics is a science concerned with complex, naturally-occurring systems,
laboratory experiments – traditionally reserved for the ‘hard sciences’ – were of little
value to economic researchers. Today, after decades of research and development, the
field known as experimental economics has become a well-established force in the
academic community. Experimental economics is the application of the laboratory
method to test the validity of various economic theories and to test bed new market
mechanisms. Using cash-motivated students, economic experiments create real-world
incentives to help us better understand why markets and other exchange systems work
the way they do. In this presentation I provide an introduction to why and how
economists do experiments in the laboratory. I also highlight some of what economists
have learned from experimental economics research.
五、 讲者简介
Daniel E. Houser is Professor of Economics at George Mason University. As of
July 2008, he is also director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, an
experimental economics research center and laboratory founded by Nobel Laureate
Vernon Smith. Prior to joining George Mason University, Dr. Houser taught at the
University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona. Dr. Houser regularly lectures
on economics at leading universities throughout the United States, Canada and Europe,
and his research has appeared in the most prestigious journals in economics and
economic science, including Econometrica, the American Economic Review and the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. His
research has been sponsored by a large number of public and private organizations,
including the National Science Foundation. Dr. Houser graduated from the University
of Wisconsin at Madison with a BA in Mathematics and Mathematical Economics,
and earned his Ph.D. in Economics, with a focus on Bayesian Econometrics, at the
University of Minnesota.