Experimental Design and Organisation of the Experiment

Abstract

Prior to describing any details of the experimental design and organisational setup, it is useful to introduce some terminology. For purposes of clarity, we will adopt the following terminology: (1) Session: A sequence of periods involving the same group of subjects who play the game on the same day. (2) Play: A unique configuration of treatment variables of a group of sessions. We distinguish between first, second and third play in order to specify the different levels of experience. First play, thus, refers to sessions involving inexperienced subjects; second play refers to subjects who have already played the game for 15 rounds, whereas third play refers to subjects who have already played the game for 30 rounds. (3) Experiment: A collection of sessions and/or plays designed to evaluate one or more related economic propositions.