Life as a Lab: John List on the Art and Ethics of Field Experiments

Have you taken a Lyft, shopped at Walmart, or used Facebook in the last decade? If so, you've likely been a participant in one of John List's experiments. In this episode of The Pie, List, Professor of Economics and Director of the Becker Friedman Institute, returns to discuss his new 900-page textbook, Experimental Economics: Theory in Practice — the field guide he wishes he'd had as he pioneered the use of real-world experiments to figure out what moves human behavior across policy and business. From a Wisconsin baseball-card table in 1985 to the White House, Lyft, and Walmart, List shares the lessons, mistakes, and ethical questions that have shaped three decades of discovery.