California Social Science Experimental Laboratory (CASSEL)

CASSEL is the California Social Science Experimental Laboratory, a joint project of UCLA, Caltech, and the National Science Foundation. CASSEL, which is the largest and most advanced facility of its kind in the world, is open to students and faculty at UCLA and other academic institutions and (by arrangement) to researchers not associated with any academic institution. CASSEL offers a large and state-of-the-art facility, ideal for many experimental projects in the social sciences including economics, finance, political science, sociology, anthropology and marketing.

Experimental Economics: CASSEL is housed in Room 2400 of the Public Policy Building on the UCLA Campus. The main laboratory consists of 70 subject workstations; a second room permits expansion to 120 subjects. The subject pool consists of a large, diverse group of UCLA undergraduate students; currently, the database contains more than registered potential subjects.

Teaching: In addition to housing experimental research, CASSEL is a teaching facility. Freshman Seminars offered in CASSEL have included:

• Decision-Making under Uncertainty
• The Winner’s Curse in Common value Auctions
• Recession, Depression and Coordination Failure
• Trust in Contractual Relationships
• Bargaining, Haggling and Fairness Across Cultures
• Markets and Efficiency

Senior Researchers: Senior Researchers affiliated with CASSEL hold appointments at University of Alaska – Anchorage, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Brown University, Caltech, University of Chicago, Claremont Colleges, Columbia University, University of Utah, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara, as well as in the Departments of Anthropology, Economics, Political Science and Sociology, the Anderson School of Business and the School of Law at UCLA.

Contact Information

• Hugo Hopenhayn, Director, hopen@econ.ucla.edu
• Estela Hopenhayn, Lab Managerehopen@ucla.edu
• Phone: (310) 825-7703
• URL: http://www.cassel.ucla.edu