Economic Science Association

Economic Science Association
Name	Economic Science Association
Formation	1986
Type	Professional society
Headquarters	Not specified
Region served	International
Membership	Experimental economists, researchers, academics
Leader title	President
Website	None

Contents

Economic Science Association

The Economic Science Association is an international professional society for researchers who specialize in experimental methods in experimental economics and related fields such as behavioral economics, game theory, and decision theory. It serves as a hub connecting scholars from institutions such as University of California, Santa Barbara, Harvard University, University of Chicago, Princeton University, and University of Pennsylvania and affiliates with journals and conferences that shape research agendas in laboratory economics, field experiments, and market design.

History

Founded in 1986 by a cohort of scholars influenced by work at centers such as Cowles Foundation, Center for Decision Research, Institute for Advanced Study, and the Santa Fe Institute, the association emerged amid growing interest sparked by seminal experimental studies at University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Minnesota, and Ohio State University. Early leaders included researchers associated with programs at California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and London School of Economics. The association grew in parallel with the institutionalization of laboratory facilities like the Experimental Economics Laboratory at University of Arizona and the rise of flagship venues such as the American Economic Association annual meetings where experimentalists presented alongside scholars from National Bureau of Economic Research and Royal Economic Society.

The association promotes rigorous use of experimental methods championed by pioneers connected to Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureates and research groups at University of Zurich, University of Bonn, Tilburg University, and University of Cambridge. It encourages replication and methodological transparency aligning with initiatives at Open Science Framework, collaborations with societies like Society for Judgment and Decision Making, Cognitive Science Society, and partnerships with funders including National Science Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, and European Research Council. Activities emphasize protocol pre-registration influenced by standards from American Statistical Association and meta-analytic practices common in publications from Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Review of Economic Studies.

Membership draws experimentalists from departments at Yale University, University of Michigan, Columbia University, Brown University, Duke University, and international centers at University of Tokyo, University of Melbourne, University of Toronto, and ETH Zurich. Governance typically features an elected board with roles analogous to positions at Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, Society for Economic Dynamics, and International Economic Association. The presidency and committees have included scholars affiliated with institutes like Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and Australian National University, emphasizing rotating leadership and regional representation similar to practices at European Economic Association.

The association organizes recurring conferences that attract participants from networks anchored at NBER Summer Institute, CESifo events, and workshops hosted by Centre for Economic Policy Research. Proceedings and working papers circulate via series used by scholars at SSRN, RePEc, and institutional repositories at Princeton University Press and Cambridge University Press. While not tied to a single journal, members commonly publish in outlets such as Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Experimental Economics (journal), and cross-disciplinary journals including Nature Human Behaviour and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences where experimental studies from association members appear.

Methodological innovations promoted by the association build on techniques developed in laboratories at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas at Austin, Rutgers University, and University of British Columbia. Contributions include refined designs for asymmetric information tasks related to work at MIT Sloan School of Management, public goods experiments informed by research at University of Stockholm, auction experiments connected to Stanford Graduate School of Business, and bargaining protocols tracing intellectual lineages to studies associated with Harvard Kennedy School. The association has advanced computerized platforms for subject recruitment and payment procedures comparable to systems used at Amazon Mechanical Turk studies led by teams at Cornell University and University of Maryland.

The association recognizes outstanding scholarship with awards analogous in prestige to honors conferred by Econometric Society, American Economic Association, and prizes associated with institutes such as NBER and Russell Sage Foundation. Recipients have included researchers affiliated with University of Pittsburgh, University of Copenhagen, University of California, Berkeley, Northwestern University, and University of Amsterdam, reflecting the global reach and impact of experimental work in shaping policy discussions at forums like World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Category:Scientific societies Category:Organizations established in 1986