experimental macroeconomics

Experimental macroeconomics is a subfield of experimental economics that makes use of controlled laboratory methods to understand aggregate economic phenomena and to test the specific assumptions and predictions of macroeconomic models. Surveys of experimental macroeconomics are found in Ochs (1995), Duffy (1998) and Ricciuti (2004). Macroeconomic topics that have been studied in the laboratory include convergence to Walrasian competitive equilibrium (Lian and Plott, 1998), growth and development (Lei and Noussair, 2002; Capra et al, 2005), specialization and trade (Noussair, Plot and Riezman, 1995), Keynesian coordination failures (Cooper, 1999; Van Huyck, Battalio and Beil, 1990), the use of money as a medium of exchange (Brown, 1996; Duffy and Ochs, 1999; 2002) and as a store of value (McCabe, 1989; Lim, Prescott and Sunder, 1994; Marimon and Sunder, 1993; 1994), exchange rate determination (Arifovic, 1996; Noussair, Plot and Riezman, 1997), money illusion (Fehr and Tyran, 2001), asset price bubbles and crashes (Smith, Suchanek and Williams, 1988; Lei, Noussair and Plott, 2001; Hommes et al, 2005) sunspots (Marimon, Spear and Sunder, 1993; Duffy and Fisher, 2005), bank runs (Schotter and Yorulmazer, 2003; Garratt and Keister, 2005), contagions (Corbae and Duffy, 2006), speculative currency attacks (Heinemann, Nagel and Ockenfels, 2004), and the economic impact of various fiscal and monetary policies (Riedl and Van Winden, 2001; Arifovic and Sargent, 2003; Marimon and Sunder, 1994; Bernasconi and Kirchkamp, 2000).