Experiment 1 Getting started with simple experiments

1.1 Introduction: Bringing economics to life

How can we make economic principles truly resonate with our students? What if they could experience the market forces and strategic decisions we teach, rather than just hearing about them in a lecture? This book is your guide to transforming your classroom into a living laboratory through economic experiments.

Our experience has shown us that conducting experiments is a remarkably effective way to get students to use economics to think about the world around them. Students have no problem grasping the rules, they love to get involved, and they are genuinely curious to figure out what happened and why. Better yet, they don’t always play as cleverly or ‘rationally’ as theory might predict, providing priceless opportunities to learn from their own and others’ mistakes. There is wide evidence showing that experiments have a positive impact on students’ performance and enjoyment of the class.^1 2 The enthusiasm is contagious, and as instructors, we feel the same way.

For details on registering for and using classEx, go to The classEx Quickstart in section How to use Experiencing Economics.

Experiencing Economics offers everything you need to bring this dynamic approach to your own teaching easily and successfully. It provides detailed instructions on how to conduct a series of experiments, together with the preprogrammed experiments in classEx. For each experiment it provides a step-by-step explanation of how to conduct the experiment, and provides instructor’s and student’s graphical instructions, predictions, discussion topics, homework questions, and suggestions for additional readings.

By participating, students gain a deeper, more intuitive understanding of core concepts. These experiments are more than just a powerful teaching tool; they make the learning process an enjoyable and memorable experience. Furthermore, they offer you a unique window into how your students reason, helping you refine your teaching and better transmit complex economic ideas.

How to cite this experiment

Humberto Llavador and Marcus Giamattei. 2025. ‘Getting started with simple experiments’. Experiment 1 in The CORE Team, Experiencing Economics. Available at https://www.core-econ.org/experiencing-economics/experiments/01-getting-started.html [Accessed on (date)].

1.2 Where to start and how to progress

One of the great features of Experiencing Economics is that all experiments are self-contained. You can run any of them on its own without needing to have completed others first, allowing you to adapt them to the flow of your lectures. That said, some games are more intuitive than others and serve as excellent entry points. This section offers a suggested pathway to help you and your students get comfortable with this interactive format.

1.3 Tips for running experiments

If you can lead a class, you can conduct an experiment in your classroom or online. Running experiments for teaching is easy, entertaining, and highly appreciated by your students, offering you a unique window into how your students reason. This insight will help you refine your teaching and better transmit complex economic ideas.

Economics is especially well suited for the use of experiments, as it studies the behaviour and interactions of people in economic situations. Students, acting as economic agents, are able to experience first-hand the problems faced by such agents, making economic ideas come to life in the classroom. In this section, we address questions frequently raised by instructors.

1.4 Three simple simultaneous 2×2 games: Rice–cassava, pest control, and Java–C++

If it is your first time running an experiment, these three games provide an excellent starting point for both instructors and students to become familiar with experiments and the classEx platform. You can be running your first experiment in minutes. If you already have some experience, you know that students have no difficulty in understanding their mechanism and reflecting on their results.

The three simultaneous 2×2 games in this section are among the simplest games to conduct in the classroom. They are self-explanatory (only the payoff matrix may need a brief explanation), quick to run, and suitable for any group size, including very large ones, since students play in pairs and classEx automatically does the random matching. All three experiments share the same underlying mechanism and can be played independently across sessions or sequentially within a single session.

1.5 A simple sequential game: The ultimatum game

Description

In the ultimatum game, students, randomly matched in pairs, must agree on how to divide €100 among themselves. (You can change the endowment and the currency units in the parameters of the game). Each student becomes either a proposer or a receiver . The game is sequential. First, the proposer sends a proposal to the receiver . Next, the receiver decides whether to accept or reject the proposal. If the proposal is accepted, they receive the amount agreed upon. If the proposal is rejected, they receive nothing. Figure 1.8 provides a graphical representation that you can use to explain the rules to your students.