Experimental Economics
Class time(currently):Mon & Thur 10:10-12:00pm
Instructor: David Ong, Office: C-402, email: dvdong@gmail.com

Overview of the Course

This is a research orientated course. The goal of which is to generate papers that will get us into international conferences and good journals. It will be run largely like a workshop, where I will first lecture about the basics, then help you find some topic to work on for your presentations. The first presentation will be a literature review. The 2^nd will be on an experiment design. There is no content restrictions for possible presentation topics. Your 2^nd presentation however must be an experimental design. I will help you at every step. Research is risky, and the quality of an idea can be hard to judge at the beginning. Furthermore, it’s hard to come up with something interesting if it’s not fun. Thus, a lot of your grade will depend on things that merely require diligence,e.g., attendance and class participation.See the attached files “Research Interests in Order of Priority” for my research interests.
The first part of this course will cover the basics of experimental design, which should be useful not just for the thesis, but also for designing randomized trials in marketing, management and finance. After the basics, if there is time before your presentations, I will cover some more subtle issues in experimental design in my own research. Among my lab experiments, these will include:  strategic and nonstrategic altruism, gender differences in altruism and competitiveness, “competitive altruism”, competing through other people (tiger moms and tiger wives), and gender differences in the exercise of power. Among field experiments, these will include discrimination in China, choice overload, online price dispersion and insider trading.

Grading

There will be no exams.  80% of the course grade will be based on presentations: 5% for the topic, abstract, and list of papers for bibliography, 35% for the literature review and 40% for the actual experiment. You can workin groups. The literature review part of the paper must be submitted to me the day before your presentation. They will then be distributed to the class. The papers on your literature review must be submitted 3 days before your presentation so that others may read it. Your design must be submitted 1 day before your presentation. There is no content restriction for the 1^st presentation. You can do it on any topic you like. There is a methodological restriction for your 2^nd presentation: it must be an experimental design. Thus, you could present on a theoretical paper in finance for your 1^st presentation, and then talk about your experiment design based upon that paper in your 2^nd presentation. The presentation of the literature review is a chance for you to check and complete your understanding, since others will already have read it. The presentation of your ideas is a chance to get feedback.
 
Since this is a research orientated course. The beginning of research is questioning and independent thinking. Your participation is important for your learning. To encourage you to speak up, I will give you points for questions and comments in class. About 20% will be based on class participation. 15% of this will likely be based upon quizzes to check for basic understanding of the material.

Attendance

I’m not usually particular about attendance, since attention is what really matters, and it’s really the students responsibility if they want to learn. However, past experience suggests that if a student misses classes, the quality of their class participation will be poor, and their presentations will be a big waste of time for everyone. Therefore, attendance is mandatory. Materials covered during excused absence needs to be made up ; I will test you on what you missed.  Any unexcused absence or more than 3 excused absences can result in dismissal from the course.

Doing Well in the Course

This is a research oriented course. Research is full of risk. However, I am willing to largely insure you against risk. If your attend, participate, and make an honest effort with your presentations, then, you will definitely pass, and are likely to do ok, e.g., have a grade  >80%. Two students who have failed in the past had poor attendance some years ago, did terrible presentations, and one even plagiarized.

Rules for Course

Here are things that I've come to expect from students in my classes. I'm sure that you know most of these things already, but I thought I would explain it all at once to avoid case by case corrections. 
Turn off cell phones in class and during our office hours discussions. Laptop computers must be closed unless you are taking notes. You are required to pay attention in class regardless of whether I or a student is presenting. To encourage you to pay attention and participate, I will often ask you questions. Lack of attention will likely attract my attention and therefore, questions.
I will likely be quite free with office hours. However, I will ask that you make notes during and after discussion so I don’t have to repeat things, then to send me the notes through email so we have a permanent record.