Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2017

Behavioral economics or experimental economics

My holiday reading started with the book Behavioral Economics: A History by Floris Heukelom. The book provides a interesting take on how behavioral economics has grown from humble beginnings to the huge phenomenon that it now is. A nice review of the book has been written by Andreas Ortmann and so I will not delve too deeply into general comment here, other than to say I enjoyed reading the book.  But in terms of more specific comment, one theme running throughout the book is the distinction between behavioral economics and experimental economics. Heukelom makes clear that he thinks there is a very sharp distinction between these two fields. Personally I have always thought of them both as part of one big entangled blob. There are people who clearly prefer to label themselves a behavioral economist or an experimental economist but this seemed to me more a matter of personal preference than any grand design. So, what is the difference between behavioral and experimental economics