This page presents information about the course, including a calendar.
What is 14.11?
14.11 is a new class on the topic of field (that is, 'in situ') and laboratory experiments in the social sciences - both what these experiments have taught and can teach us and how to conduct them.
The class has three major components:
In lecture, we will discuss (and you will read research papers on) 12 major substantive topics addressed by experimental social science, including: race discrimination, gender differences in behavior, persuasion, corruption and voting.
Each lecture will also cover methodological topics that will aid you in designing, conducting, analyzing and presenting a field or laboratory experiment.
You, the student, will conduct an original experimental study (i.e. not only library or Google™ research) with human subjects. There will be a number of structured assignments and milestones leading to the planning, execution, write-up and presentation of this research.
Summary of Research Topics
Racial Discrimination
Public Health and Persuasion
Incentives
Gender Differences in Economic Environments
Intrinsic Motivation and Fairness
Educational Quality
Corruption
Learning and Social Effects
Housing Experiments
Voting Behavior and Political Economy
Jury/Advocacy
Summary of Methodological Topics
Causal Inference
Threats to Validity (Internal Threats)
Sample Size, Power Calculations
Human Subjects
Threats to Validity (External Threats)
Clustering and Standard Errors
Randomization as an Instrumental Variable
Statistical Inference with Multiple Outcomes
Course calendar.| LEC # | TOPICS | LECTURERS | KEY DATES |
|---|
| 1 | Racial Discrimination | David Autor | |
| 2 | Public Health and Persuasion | Esther Duflo | |
| 3 | Incentives, Reciprocity and Cooperation | David Autor | Read 5 of 13 assigned example papers and 2 paragraphs on each |
| 4 | Gender Differences in Economic Environments: Leadership, Competition, Politics | Esther Duflo | Memo describing research topic of interest, including brief literature review |
| 5 | Intrinsic Motivation and Fairness | David Autor | Research proposal memo: Question, research design and further literature review as relevant. Complete MIT Human Subjects test
First version of Couhes application due 3 days after Lec #5 |
| 6 | Improving Educational Quality | Esther Duflo | Final version of Couhes application due - This must be submitted to Couhes 2 days after Lec #6 or you will receive no credit for 14.11 (because you cannot perform an experiment). |
| 7 | Monitoring, Deception and Corruption | David Autor | |
| 8 | Learning and Social Effects | Esther Duflo | Final research design due |
| 9 | Commitment, Self-control and Savings | Esther Duflo | |
| 10 | Housing Experiments and Neighborhood Effects | David Autor | Memo summarizing and presenting initial analysis of your experimental results |
| 11 | Voting | Esther Duflo | |
| 12 | Juries, Advocacy and Bias | David Autor | Final project due 2 days after Lec #12 |