Experiencing Economics

An ebook of experiments and games that you can run with your students online or in-the-classroom to help them learn economics through engaging in real-time decision-making.

 

Each experiment includes:

  • detailed step-by-step guide for instructors,
  • student instructions,
  • predictions,
  • discussion topics, and
  • homework questions.

The experiments are pre-programmed on the free classEx platform, making running experiments and collecting data very fast and easy.

Published so far:

  • Public goods game
    Are humans able to cooperate to achieve socially beneficial outcomes, or do they succumb to free-rider incentives?
  • Coordination game
    What strategic considerations drive investment behaviour?
  • Pollution, taxes, and permits
    What policies are effective in mitigating negative externalities like pollution?
  • An excise tax in the apple market
    What are the effects of introducing a per-unit tax on goods traded in a perfectly competitive market?
  • The multiplier process
    How does the multiplier process happen in real life?

 

 

Conducting economic experiments online and in the classroom is an effective way of getting students to use economics to think critically about the world around them and how it is represented in economic theory. Taking part in experiments motivates students by placing them in decision-making situations that correspond to the theoretical frameworks they are learning about.

Watch the video below to see how Prof Cloda Jenkins (University College London) delivered an online lecture on The Economy Unit 4 and ESPP Unit 2 in which her students played three games on classEx.

 

Other video options: Bilibili, Download

  • Prof. Cloda Jenkins and Maha Khalid, a student on her course, give their reflections on these games from a lecturer and a student perspective, in this blog.

The experiments and games complement the units in The Economy and Economy, Society and Public Policy, and can also be used alongside other textbooks.