Précis of experimental economics.

Summary This Handbook provides an overview of the experimental methods used in economics. These methods have been developed to observe the behavior of "economic agents" in situations that replicate those in which the economist is interested, but in a controlled environment. On this basis, the tools presented in this booklet make it possible to test the predictions and empirical content of economic theory, to bring to light new stylized facts about the functioning of situations poorly understood by theory, or to inform public policy-making. This wide range of objectives explains why these methods have become very common in applied economics, and why their use has spread beyond economics to fields such as marketing, management, and so on. The book presents a detailed treatment of the main tools available to measure different aspects of economic behavior: individual decisions under certainty and uncertainty, intertemporal choices, strategic interactions, social preferences and resource allocation mechanisms. The book also presents the methodological criteria for assessing the theoretical and empirical relevance of the data collected using these tools.