Journal of Economic Literature Vol. 61 No. 1 2023

Designing Information Provision Experiments

Ingar Haaland¹; Christopher Roth²; Johannes Wohlfart³

¹ Department of Economics, NHH Norwegian School of Economics · ² University of Cologne and ECONtribute. · ³ Department of Economics and Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI), University of Copenhagen, CESifo, and the Danish Finance Institute.

Abstract

Information provision experiments allow researchers to test economic theories and answer policy-relevant questions by varying the information set available to respondents. We survey the emerging literature using information provision experiments in economics and discuss applications in macroeconomics, finance, political economy, public economics, labor economics, and health economics. We also discuss design considerations and provide best-practice recommendations on how to (i) measure beliefs; (ii) design the information intervention; (iii) measure belief updating; (iv) deal with potential confounds, such as experimenter demand effects; and (v) recruit respondents using online panels. We finally discuss typical effect sizes and provide sample size recommendations.

DOI

10.1257/jel.20211658

Volume

61

Issue

1

Pages

3-40

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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