Centre for Experimental Economics
EXEC is one of the oldest centres for experimental economics in the world, and has been active since 1988 when it was founded by John Hey and Graham Loomes. For a while EXEC was directed by Miguel Costa-Gomes. John Hey, a distinguished economist and one of the pioneers in experimental economics, had been director of EXEC for many years. Since John Hey's retirement (still an active member of EXEC and productive in the relevant research and activities), Professor Yuan Ju has taken over as the Director.
In the years since EXEC was founded, experimental economics has grown into a respected and well-established methodology, used by many thousands of economists throughout the world. In essence the methodology involves testing economic theories using data generated from laboratory experiments - exactly as in the physical sciences. Recently field experiments too have become increasingly important. EXEC has contributed to this development, carrying out a variety of experiments, investigating theories of individual behaviour, of behaviour in games, and behaviour in markets.