2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Experimental economics has developed since the 1960s, establishing a methodology, a professional organization, and, finally, a journal. Economics experiments differ methodologically from other social science experiments in two ways: subjects are paid their earnings in the experiments, and no deception of subjects is allowed. They differ in content as well, focusing on tests of economic theory and careful examinations of behavior that deviate from the "rational actor model" dominating the field of economics. Four canonical games are examined (double auction market, public goods game, ultimatum game, and trust game), and contributions of experiments in economics are summarized.
