Lecture: "Field Experiments in Agricultural and Resource Economics" presented by John List, Homer J. Livingstone Professor of Economics University of Chicago

May 5, 2011, 4 p.m.
The Faculty Club - Great Hall
University of California, Berkeley

John List received his PhD from the University of Wyoming and is currently the Homer J. Livingstone Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago after positions at the University of Central Florida, the University of Arizona and the University of Maryland. John has been at the forefront of environmental economics and has served as senior economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisors for Environmental and Resource Economics. John is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and a University Fellow at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. However, John is best known as one of the world's leading experts on experimental economics.

John has pioneered work using field experiments in which he developed scientific methods for testing economic theory directly in the marketplace. He received the Kenneth Galbraith Award in 2010 and 2008 Arrow Prize for Senior Economists for his research on Behavioral Economics in the field. To obtain data for his field experiments, he has made use of several different markets including countless charitable fundraising activities, the Chicago Board of Trade, Costa Rican CEOs, the new automobile market, sports memorabilia markets, coin markets, auto repair markets, open air markets located throughout the globe, various venues on the internet, several auction settings, shopping malls, various labor markets, and grammar and high schools. His work has provided insight on such issues as pricing behavior, market structure, the valuation of non-marketed goods and services, the impact of environmental regulation, the economics of charitable giving and the impact of incentives on education and weight loss.

Recently, John has been involved in creating an experimental laboratory that will bear fruit in the education literature for years to come. John, along with Chicago economist Steven Levitt and Harvard economist Roland Fryer, and funded generously by Chicago philanthropists Kenneth and Anne Griffin, is establishing the Griffin Early Childhood Center. This program will focus on understanding how best to educate the nation's youth. Additionally, John continues to be active in the field of environmental economics with recent field experiments on environmental technology adoption.

The lecture is free of charge and open to the campus community