WP 2020-21 A Case Study of an Experiment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Online Elicitation of Subjective Beliefs and Economic Preferences

Forthcoming, Journal of the Economic Science Association

AUTHORS: Glenn W. Harrison, Andre Hofmeyr, Harold Kincaid, Brian Monroe, Don Ross, Mark Schneider and J. Todd Swarthout

ABSTRACT: We convey our experiences developing and implementing an online experiment to elicit subjective beliefs and economic preferences. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated closures of our laboratories required us to conduct an online experiment in order to collect beliefs and preferences associated with the pandemic in a timely manner. Since we had not previously conducted a similar multi-wave online experiment, we faced design and implementation considerations that are not present when running a typical laboratory experiment. By discussing these details more fully, we hope to contribute to the online experiment methodology literature at a time when many other researchers may be considering conducting an online experiment for the first time. We focus primarily on methodology; in a complementary study we focus on initial research findings.