Experimental law and economics

Experimental law and economics is the newest methodological development in law and economics research. Yet a lot of researchers -- old and young -- are not familiar with the foundations of the method. This may lead to skepticism. In this entry, I elaborate on the purpose of experiments and introduce building blocks of the method that tend to distinguish experimental law and economics from experimental methods in other disciplines. Moreover, I shortly discuss concerns about the external validity of the results obtained in a laboratory experiment. Finally, I introduce and invalidate the most common criticisms against experiments that most often advanced by scholars unfamiliar with the method and the discipline. As knowledge about the method's foundations is further spread, experimental law and economics will substantially contribute advancing the research frontier of the economic theory of law