Carlos Rodríguez-Sickert is the co-director of CICS, and he will be speaking at the third annual Conference on Experimental Economics, which is organized by the Vernon Smith Center for Experimental Economics and Universidad Francisco Marroquín (Guatemala City, Guatemala).

The event will take place during February 26-28th, 2015 in Antigua Guatemala. Several noteworthy academics will be attending the event from abroad, such as Jordi Brandts from the Institute for Economic Analysis and the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics; Ernesto Reuben from Columbia University and Markus Mobius from Microsoft Research.

Rodríguez Sickert’s will presents this friday his lecture titled “Ecological validity, activation of social norms and external validity of social dilemma experiments: Evidence from a common pool resource experiment with artisanal fishers”. During his presentation, Rodríguez Sickert will assess the external analysis that are conducted to validate social dilemma experiments, and he will also address how these experiments relate to social norms.

In order to do so, Rodríguez Sickert will demonstrate the importance of setting the right context for these experiments.  A social dilemma experiment will receive higher external validity when it’s framed in a context that resembles the reality of those taking part in the experiment. In the case of fishermen and the extraction of a common resource, for example, a social dilemma experiment will be more valid when it is done using the actual resource the fishermen extract rather than any other resource. The same principle applies to experiments with student groups and has been scientifically proven for both types of groups (fishermen and students).