Driving Forces Behind The Rising Of Experimental Economics

It has clearly become a fact that experimental economics has grown up rapidly. At present, experiments not only has penetrated into most fields of microeconomics, but also germinated in many fields of macroeconomics. Economists nowadays have come to increasingly rely on experiments to explain and predict economic phenomenon. However, if we take a look back to the rising of experimental economics, we will find that the process is full of twists and turns. The mainstream economists had explicitly shown a suspicion or even denial toward experimental economics till 1980s. Although it took a long time, economics has finally become an experimental science. The mainstream economists'attitudes toward experimentation change to accept and further support just as what happened in natural science.Why did this happen? In this thesis, we will systematically analyze the driving forces behind this dramatic transition. First of all, based on a review of the achievements experimental economics has generated, this thesis sketches out a historical picture of the rising of experimental economics. Along with the development that how the scientific community of experimental economic grew and expended and finally incorperated into the community of mainstream economics, we firstly descripe how pioneers in this field strive hard and how their interactions between each other and with non-experimental researcheres as well as their interactions with outer factors faciliate the rising of experimental economics.And then we discuss why did experimental economics just born in the midcentury but not sooner or later and why it was in 1980s that mainstream economists began to acknowledge the relevance of laboratory experiments from a perspective of paradigm shift. Typically, we investigate how the advent of game theory provided a fertile land for experimental work, and why experimentation did not make sense as economics after the World Warâ…¡was dominated by an overarching framework, namely, general equilibrium theory and its allying empirical method, econometrics. Likewise, it's naturally to conjesture that once general equilibrium theory as well as econometrics ran into trouble, experimentation began to flourish. And that is the story in the late 1970s and early 1980s.Nevertheless, these are only parts of the story, as any discipline would not always invole in an "revolutionary" paradigm shift. Rather, it should be an evolutionary process since its first birth. Therefore, we then focus on the special growing routh of experimental economics, which is characterized by the interaction between theory and experiment. We propose a basic mechanism of how experimental economics has developed along this routh, and how it later comes to be token over by the "Law of J.B. Say"; namely, the supply creates its own demand. This suggests that the application of experiments generated a more intense use of experiments.Finally, we try to made a judgment on the rising of experimental economics by answering a common question in philosophy of science; that is, has experimental economics generated a scientific revolution in economics? We suggest that, although it has made substantial progress in raising variuos propositions, there are still a lot of work to do, and of the first priority is to construct its core model.To sum, we come to several conclusions:(1) as a parallel and complementary kind of model to theory, it is of no doubt that experimental research has been playing a significant role in understanding and reforming the world, and (2) in such process, it is of first importance to consider experimental design, which is the bridge connected research idea and experimentation, for this is the most distinguished difference between theory and experiment. We suggest two criterions for experimental design: "problem-orientation" and "economy". Moreover, (3) different from experiment researches conducted in natural sciences, once experiment comes into social sciences, it undoubtedly will embody with meaning reflection and value. Therefore, in addition to find its validity in the process of research, experimentists should go beyond this and find some supports from a priori "conjectures".For these reasons, experimentation may make a special sence in China. This is not only reflected in the commonplaces of experimental economics, but also in the sense that as a method good at positive research, it provides us an impartial platform of dialogue with western countries. Furthermore, experiment will help us understand better about whether or not the theories of behavior, environment and institution as well as its applications in mechanism design of mainstream economics are applicable in China. All in all, we believe experimentation may cast a new light on economic researches in China in the future.