Abstract:
One persistant concern without experimental economics is the problem of generalizability from behaviors observed within the experimental laboratory to various field contexts. Described as the problem of ``parallelism'' by Vernon Smith, these issues have inspired the development of a variety of methodological tools within experimental economics. This dissertation focuses on one such tool that has risen to prominence in recent years: The use of online virtual worlds as that manage to blend the different advantages of laboratory research and field experiments in order to enable the exploration of new economic questions using experimental methods.
