Aims and objectives
Economic experiments have the general aim of transforming the economy using realistic science and it is underpinned by three main objectives: testing existing economic theories; identifying useful elements (and in particular some constants that characterize human behaviours in order to develop new theories); applying the experimental results to the real world through a dialogue with policymakers - or, in the words of Roth (1995: 22), “whispering in the ears of princes” - with the aim to help people to improve their performance of choice (Davis and Holt 1993; Roth 1995).
The role of experiments in testing theories is described below. The main result of the second aim - the identification of regularities - finds its widest and most complete formulation in the identification and classification of some biases characterizing experimental men respect to economic man. Finally, the application of experimental results to reality is the basis of market design, which simulates market strategies and policies to predict their effects on economic behaviours (Roth 2002).