The CRISEI Experimental Lab includes a broad-spectrum of teaching and research activities to build up knowledge in an evolutionary environment pertaining to different, but interrelated, topics (development economics, public economics, environmental economics and circular economy, and many others). In this space, scholars can conduct their studies by means of experiments involving the observation of human subjects who take economic choices under controlled settings in order to test theories of economic behavior by observing those factors determining their decisions (e.g. economic incentive, policies, marketing strategies, sociology).
The general mission of the Experimental Lab can be broken down into four objectives:
- Research: Providing Lab members with relevant scientific and technical support to research human cognition, with an emphasis on behavioral and experimental economics. To this end, the lab includes several facilities and services (e.g. an experimental lab, data, software, etc.) to test economic theories and develop policies.
- Awareness creation: Increasing knowledge of several economics topics to help stakeholders evaluate whether their current efforts and practices are likely to address global trends and opportunities. The repository of knowledge goes beyond the simple dissemination of information and offer “all-time” support through data sharing, knowledge management and consultation.
- Mentoring and training: Facilitating the identification of educational and training needs for stakeholder skills development, in line with overarching economics trends.
- Networking: Ensuring access and sharing of professional expertise of researchers and facilitate interaction with colleagues by means of direct contact, hosted events and other activities (e.g. workshops, seminars, national and international project applications) and exchange programs between Lab members (based on the Erasmus model).
A modern and versatile infrastructure, internally designed, was created for these goals. It consists of a Control Room endowed with 20 workstations for the experiments and one station for the experimenter assisted by a large screen and a ceiling projector.
The Laboratory also offers support and advice for experimental activities to PhD students and visiting researchers who do not have a suitable infrastructure to conduct their experimental studies.
