ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Rejecting Rejections – the Passive Reception of Experimental Economics
Author: Svorencik Andrej
By the early 1990s experimental economics research became a standard feature of leading economics journals. Publication success together with securing funding were the most important vehicles in gaining acceptance of experimental economics. In this paper I analyze the interaction of experimental economists with the rest of the economics profession that did not have direct experience with the experimental method. I describe a mechanism of passive reception of experimental economics. While active reception defined the community of experimental economists and influenced its internal growth, the passive reception defined the boundaries, the distance and image of experimental economics to the rest of the profession. The boundaries were negotiated on two fronts – publications in general economics journals and funding mainly from the National Science Foundation. These two fronts were closely connected, because publication success was a significant element in grant evaluation and success in gaining grants provided external affirmation that the supported research agenda is worthwhile to pursue and shielded it in part from skeptics.
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