Abstract
This paper highlights the contributions made by lab-in-the-field experiments, which are also known as artefactual, framed and extra-lab experiments. We present a curated sample of lab-in-the-field experiments and discuss how they can be conducted on their own or combined with conventional laboratory experiments, natural experiments, randomised control trials and surveys to provide unique insights into the behaviour of a diverse population. Using our recent research on gender and leadership, we demonstrate how lab-in-the-field experiments have offered new perspectives about gender differences in decision-making. Finally, we outline the ethical and implementational challenges researchers may face while conducting these experiments and share some of the strategies we employed to address them.
Highlights
A defining feature of economics is that it investigates how the decisions of agents in society might change in the presence of competing incentives and diverse institutions
We explore the role played by field experiments in economics and focus on a particular kind of field experiment, referred to as a “lab-in-the-field” experiment
We describe lab-in-the-field research focusing on gender and leadership, especially that reported in Gangadharan et al (2016) and Gangadharan et al (2019), which illustrate how lab-in-the-field experiments can be combined with a natural policy change to provide insights into behaviours that can undermine the leadership of women
Summary
A defining feature of economics is that it investigates how the decisions of agents in society might change in the presence of competing incentives and diverse institutions. Modern economic theory recognizes that, in interactions where information asymmetries and expectations matter, agents act strategically subject to a range of factors, including cognitive limitations, preferences that contain elements of fairness, altruism and reciprocity, and social norms. Where these constraints were once lumped in the black box of “unobservables” (often categorized as “omitted variables” in econometric analyses), there is a growing focus on improving our understanding of them, and how they affect agents’ behaviour (especially in ways that differ from what a traditional rational agent model would predict). We highlight the ethical and implementational challenges we encountered while planning and conducting these experiments, and share the strategies we employed to overcome these difficulties
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