| Laboratory experiments are a widely used methodology for advancing causal knowledge in the physical and life sciences. With the exception of psychology, the adoption of laboratory experiments has been much slower in the social sciences, although during the last two decades, the use of lab experiments has accelerated. Nonetheless, there remains considerable resistance among social scientists who argue that lab experiments lack "realism" and "generalizability". In this article we discuss the advantages and limitations of laboratory social science experiments by comparing them to research based on non-experimental data and to field experiments. We argue that many recent objections against lab experiments are misguided and that even more lab experiments should be conducted. | |
Charities often devise fund-raising strategies that exploit natural human competitiveness in combination with the desire for public recognition. We explore whether institutions promoting competition can affect altruistic giving - even when possibilities for public acclaim are minimal. In a controlled laboratory experiment based on a sequential “dictator game”, we find that subjects tend to give more when placed in a generosity tournament, and tend to give less when placed in an earnings tournament - even if there is no award whatsoever for winning the tournament. Further we find that subjects’ experimental behavior correlates with their responses to a post-experiment questionnaire, particularly questions addressing altruistic and rivalrous behavior. Based on this evidence, we argue that behavior in our experiment is driven, in part, by innate competitive motives.
An incisive article in the SBP by Prof. Ed Walsh that tackles head-on one of the biggest and most blatant problems in the country - effective governance. The current dismal economic situation is expressed as a result of mismanagement and it is made clear that without constitutional reform we're unlikely to be headed anywhere better.
The specific reform proposed is changing the electoral process to a List System:
"whereby members of parliament are elected partially from local constituencies and partially from party lists of individuals who have proven records of distinguished national and international achievement: many from business and the professions"
Such a system would increase the pool of management talent and their ability to govern by quelling incentives for the all too common and clearly retrogressive process of myopic pandering to local constituents for re-election. I fully agree that Ministers need to focus on the major national issues and plan strategically for a better future - difficult and unpalatable decisions need to be made in the next few months and years to steady the county and secure prosperity for the future. Walsh essentially makes the point that if our constitution is preventing this, we need to change it.
Some interesting points in the article:
"Our system ... deters the government from moving swiftly and taking difficult decisions.... the pool from which a Taoiseach draws when forming a government is limited indeed, because in effect it bypasses leaders of enterprise and the professions with the necessary strategic management skills and experience...”
“Our system … draws over 80 per cent of the Oireachtas from a group of some 1,000 people: the members of local authorities. While a county or city council would certainly be a source of pleasant and well-intentioned people it would be an unlikely source of the experienced talent required to strategically guide national policy and effectively manage a multibillion budget"
"The Oireachtas has not risen to the occasion by conveying a new seriousness appropriate to these dangerous times; rather it has continued the pursuit of trivia and political bloodsports in a raucous way that has not enhanced its standing."
".... the quality of national governance can not exceed the quality of those who govern."
