Finding new insights with experimental economics
UChicago Features, May 07, 2012
John List’s career as one of the world’s leading researchers in experimental economics got its start with work in one of his teenage interests—buying and selling sports cards.
Although it began as a way to fund his undergraduate studies, List saw that the trade was relevant to bigger economic questions. He noticed that women with small children were the most likely to offer higher prices for cards, in part because they did not want to loiter and bargain with their children in tow. Such decisions played into a larger economic picture, he realized.