María Gutiérrez Ruan (Spanish)

María Gutiérrez Ruan, incoming PhD student at the University of Lausanne, will present her MA thesis "Lab in the field experiments: a new perspective in experimental economics" (U. Paris I). The presentation will be in Spanish.

María Gutiérrez Ruan, estudiante de primer año de doctorado en la Universidad de Lausanne, presentará su tesis de maestría "Lab in the field experiments: a new perspective in experimental economics" (U. Paris I).

Abstract: This thesis investigates the hybrid methodology of lab in the field experiments whose historical motivation has been to study the behaviour of particular types of populations (fishermen, farmers, indigenous people, etc.) which could hardly be brought into the physical space of traditional laboratories (usually located within universities). This methodology is situated between traditional laboratory experiments and the different types of field experiments. In contrast to laboratory experiments, this new methodology attempts to overcome the limitation of taking into account only “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic” (WEIRD) societies. Thus, lab in the field experiments recently have played an important role in emerging economies, such as Colombia. This thesis has three main objectives: to situate lab in the field experiments in the history of experimental economics, to propose a methodological discussion about the lab in the field experiments in terms of internal and external validity and finally and to provide a reflection about the originality of lab in the field experiments.