How Do Societies Avoid Collapse?
June 10, 2013
How Do Societies Avoid Collapse?
Featured on The Property and Environment Research Center Blog, Friday, June 7, 2013
Economic research has long been subject to the same pitfall: it lacks a laboratory in which to carry out simple experiments. Unlike sciences such as physics or chemistry, economic data are messy, imperfectly measured, and affected by any number of unknown variables. This makes it difficult to understand how humans and markets actually work.
The field of experimental economics attempts to address these challenges. Using controlled laboratory experiments and computer programs, researchers are able to take a more scientific approach to understand human behavior, and they are often uncovering new revelations about the way human societies work….
