Most methodological discussion in experimental economics has been pursued by justifying the use of experiments as theory testing vehicles. More recently it has also been argued that the external validity of experiments requires the use of non- experimental field evidence. Therefore, it is argued, experiments are intermediaries between theories and field evidence. In this paper it is proposed that this picture of experiments is mistaken in the general case and that experiments can be justifiably undertaken as autonomous vehicles of discovery independently of theory- testing or field evidence.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Dundee, Economic Studies in its series Discussion Papers with number
194.