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Syllabus for Experimental Economics

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Syllabus for Experimental Economics Syllabus for Neuroeconomics and the Law Wednesday 4:00-5:50 Instructor: Professor Kevin McCabe, [email protected], (o) 703-993-9441, Law 223. Course description: This course is designed for graduate students, and advance undergraduates, who have a desire to learn how neuroeconomics can be used to inform their studies. I’ve divided the course into two tracts. The Survey Tract is for law and other interested students who want to learn what research is occurring in neuroeconomics and how this affects the way we think about individual and interpersonal decision making and accountability. The survey level is worth 2 credits. The Research Tract is for students who want to develop the skills to actually do Neuroeconomics experiments. It is three credits and includes the survey level. Law students can enroll directly in the survey level course, and can enroll for an additional credit by proposing to do either a research paper appropriate for a law review or taking the standard research level tract. Economics, neuroscience, and other students can enroll directly in the three credit research tract. Student learning goals: Students who take this course at the Survey Level will first learn the methodology and assumptions of experimental economics and neuroeconomics. Second, students will learn some of the basic results from each of these research areas organized to support a common behavioral theme. At the Research Level students will also learn how to design and conduct an fMRI experiment. Required Course Materials: If you are in this course at the Review Level to learn about Neuroeocnomics purchase this book: Joseph LeDoux, Synaptic Self, Penguin Books: New York, New York, 2003. If you are in this course at the Research Level and plan to do Neuroeconomics research, purchase the LeDoux and following additional books: Scott Huettel, Allen Song, and Gregory McCarthy, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Sinauer Associates, Massachusetts. Gazzaniga, Michael, Richard Ivry, and George Mangun, Cognitive Neuroscience, WW Norton & Company, New York, 2002, Second Edition. Requirements and Methods of Evaluation: Your grade will be determined by (1) six short essays approx. 3-5 pages typed double spaced on a topic that draws on the course readings and class discussions, and (2) class attendance and participation. If you are taking the course at the Research Level you are also required to produce a 10-20 page double spaced proposal for a neuroeconomics experiment, or if you are a law student a law review article. Class Structure and Keys to success: Assigned readings are structured as follows. The first unit, usually from one of the required text books, is background reading. You should skim through this material and refer back to it as necessary. The second unit is a survey article. You should read this casually but make an outline of the main ideas. The third, and sometimes more units is a (are) targeted article(s) that you should read carefully and prepare to discuss in class. The additional units, below the line are suggested essay articles. Each class I will lecture for about an hour. The remaining time will be spent discussing the target article. Students who are taking an extra credit are also expected to meet at our regular lab meeting TBA. Students with disabilities: Students with Faculty Contact Sheets for this class need to present them to the instructor as soon as possible. Other students requiring reasonable accommodations, as covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act, should contact the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to open up a DRC file and discuss needed accommodations. Questions and requests for reasonable accommodations should be directed to DRC, 234 SUB I, phone (703) 993-2474 or email [email protected]. Honor code: George Mason University is an honor code university. Students pledge not to cheat, lie, plagiarize or steal in academic matters. Topics and Assigned Readings: Part I: What is Neuroeconomics? Week 1: Neuroeconomics: Methods, and Research Programs LeDoux, Chapters One and Two Kevin A. McCabe, “Neuroeconomics,” Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Lynn Nadel (ed-in chief), Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., Vol. 3, 2003, pp. 294-298. McCabe, Neuroeconomics, Chapter One. Camerer, Colin, George Loewenstein, and Drazen Prelec, “Neuroeconomics: How neuroscience can inform economics,” Journal of Economic Literature , 2005, XLIII. Glimcher, Paul and Aldo Rustichini, “Neuroeconomics: The Consilience of Brain and Decision,” Science, 306, 2004, pp. 447- 452. Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Choosing a Biological Science of Choice Paul W. Glimcher, Neuron, October 10, 2002, pp. 323-332. Week 2: The Neuroeconomics of Money LeDoux, Chapter Nine Lea Stephen, and Paul Webley, “Money as tool, money as drug: The biological psychology of a strong incentive,” forthcoming Behavior and Brain Sciences. Kevin McCabe, “Fiat Money as a Store of Value in an Experimental Market,” JEBO, (12)1989, pp. 215-231. Knutson, Brian, Charles Adams, Grace Fong, and Daniel Hommer, “Anticipation of Increasing Monetary reward Selectively Recruits Nucleus Accumbens,” The Journal of Neuroscience, 2001(21), RC159(1-5). Guy Elston et. al., “The Pyramidal Cell in Cognition: A Comparative Study in Human and Monkey,” The Journal of Neuroscience, (21)2001, pp. 1-5. Arthur Toga, and Paul Thompson, “Mapping brain Asymmetry,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, (4)2003, pp. 37-48. Damon Clark et. al., “Scalable architecture in mammalian brains,” Nature, (411)2001, pp. 189- 193. Week 3: Economics Experiments: Measuring Message Sending Behavior Smith, Vernon, 1982. Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science. American Economic Review, 72(5), pp. 923-955. Vernon L. Smith, “Constructivist and Ecological Rationality in Economics,” (V.L. Smith), American Economic Review, 2003, pp. 465-508. “Preferences, Property Rights and Anonymity in Bargaining Games,” (E. Hoffman, K. McCabe, K. Shachat, V.L. Smith), Games and Economic Behavior, 7, 1994, pp. 346-380. (Reprinted: Smith, 2000, 5) “Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History,” (J. Berg, J. Dickhaud, K. McCabe), Games and Economic Behavior, 10, 1995, pp. 122-142. Smith, Vernon, 1986. Experimental methods in the political economy of exchange. Science, 234, pp. 167-173. Smith, Vernon, 1976. Experimental Economics: Induced Value Theory. American Economic Review, 66(2), pp. 274-279. Hoffman, Elizabeth, Kevin McCabe, V.L. Smith, “Social Distance and Other Regarding Behavior in Dictator Games,” American Economic Review, June 1996, pp. 653-660. Deck, Carey, Kevin McCabe, Dave Porter, “Hyperinflation in a Laboratory Economy,” forthcoming, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations. Week 4: The Evolving Brain and Emerging Markets LeDoux, Chapters Three and Four Klein, Richard, The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins, Chapter 8, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999. Trivers, Robert, “Reciprocal Altruism,” The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, March, 1971, pp. 35-57. Berg, Joyce, John Dickhaut, Kevin McCabe (1995), “Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History,” Games and Economic Behavior, 10, pp. 122-142. Kevin McCabe, Mary Rigdon and Vernon Smith, “ “Positive Reciprocity and Intentions in Trust Games,” in press, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations, 2003. Coricelli, Georgio, Kevin McCabe, Vernon Smith, (2000) “Theory-of Mind Mechanism in Personal Exchange,”in Affective Minds, G. Hatano, N.Okada, and H. Tanabe eds., Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, 2000, pp.249-259. Kevin McCabe and Vernon Smith, (2001), "Goodwill Accounting and the Process of Exchange," in Bounded rationality: The adaptive toolbox Gigerenzer, G. & Selten, R. (Eds.) (2001).. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2001, pp. 319-340. Kevin McCabe (2003), Reciprocity and Social Order: What do experiments tell us about Economic Growth?, USAID papers, http://www.mercatus.org/socialchange/article.php/276.html Week 5: What Disorders of the Brain Tell us about Decision Making LeDoux, Chapters Eight and Ten Antoine Bechara, Hanna Damasio, Daniel Tranel, Antonio R. Damasio, “Deciding Advantageously Before Knowing the Advantageous Strategy,” Science 275(28), 1997, pp. 1293-1295. Gazzaniga, Michael, “Cerebral Specialization and Interhemispheric Communication: Does the corpus callosum enable the human condition? Week 6: Motivation and Goal Directed behavior LeDoux, Chapter Nine (Read Again) Schultz, Wolfram, (2000). Multiple Reward Signals in the Brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 1, pp. 189-207 Montague, Reed, and Gregory Berns (2002). Neural Economics and the Biological Substrates of Valuation, Neuron, 36, pp. 265- 284 John O’Doherty, Peter Dayan, Johannes Schultz, Ralf Deichmann, Karl Friston, Raymond J. Dolan, “Dissociable Roles of Ventral and Dorsal Striatum in Instrumental Conditioning,” Science, 304, 2004, pp. 452-454. Montague, Read, Steven Hyman, and Johnathan Cohen, 2004. Computational roles for dopamine in behavioral control. Nature 431, pp. 760-767. Dickinson, Anthony, and Bernard Balleine, (1994). Motivational control of goal-directed action. Animal Learning and Behavior, 22, pp. 1-18. Balleine, Bernard, and Anthony Dickinson, (1998). Goal-directed instrumental action: contingency and incentive learning and their cortical substrates, Neuropharmacology, 37, pp. 407-419. Week 7: Decision Theory, Game Theory, and Reinforcement learning Week 8: Imaging Experiments: Measuring Human Brain Activity Week 9: The Neuroeconomics of Decision Making LeDoux, Chapters Five, Six, and Seven Week 10: Social Neuroscience, Sympathy, and Theory of Mind Week 11: The Neuroeconomics of Reciprocity and Personal Exchange Week 12: The Neuroeconomics of Social Change and Social Justice .
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