Dimensions of Parallelism: Some Policy Applications of Experimental Methods

Abstract

The term "parallelism" refers to a vague notion about how observations of simple laboratory phenomena can help one understand and predict the behavior of a complicated and changing world. Of what use are experimental results to someone who is interested in something vastly larger and more complicated, perhaps fundamentally different than anything that can be studied in a laboratory setting? Questions such as this and the related notion of parallelism have probably existed from the earliest development of scientific experimental methodology, and although I found the term in a paper by Vernon Smith (1980) the notion itself pervades all branches of science and engineering.

Additional Information

© 1987 Cambridge University Press. The financial support of the National Science Foundation and the California Institute of Technology Program for Enterprise and Public Policy is gratefully acknowledged. I also wish to thank Alvin Roth and Howard Kunreuther, who provided comments on an early draft.

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Published - Plott_1987p193.pdf

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