FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Cary Deck, associate professor of economics in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, will be a visiting professor at the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University for the 2008-2009 academic year.

The Economic Science Institute is a research center that uses laboratory methods to expand understanding of human socioeconomic behavior. Its mission is to study the function and origin of human institutions in creating social rules and order and to build and test market and management systems.

Vernon Smith, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for the development of the field of experimental economics, and several of his colleagues founded the institute at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., in 2008. Prior to the development of experimental economics, economists focused on theories relying heavily on mathematical abstractions about how people behave and how markets work. The fact that markets in natural environments are dynamic and operate in specialized institutional settings led Smith in 1956 to look to the laboratory to determine whether these abstractions were, in fact, descriptive of market behavior and could be tested in a scientific way. Using cash-motivated subjects, economic experiments create real-world incentives to help researchers better understand why markets and other exchange systems work the way they do.  

Deck is the chair of the Walton College Behavioral Business Research Laboratory, housed in the J.B. Hunt Transportation Services Inc. Center for Academic Excellence. His research focuses on using controlled laboratory techniques to investigate economic behavior. His work looks at economic system design including electronic markets, risk attitudes and strategic behavior in games.

I am very excited to have this opportunity to work with top researchers in my field,” said Deck. Other founders of the institute include John Dickhaut, Bart Wilson, David Porter and Stephen Rassenti. “Being a part of the Economic Science Institute will allow me to explore new developments in the field while continuing my current research agenda. In addition, I will be looking for best practices that will benefit the behavioral research facilities on the University of Arkansas campus.” Deck has previously collaborated with Wilson on several research projects, including a study of zone pricing in gasoline markets and the phenomenon of rockets and feathers. 

Deck’s research on gasoline markets was sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission. He has also received grants from the National Science Foundation to study bargaining and arbitration and from the National Institutes of Health to study the effects of aging on optimal decision making. He has published in American Economic Review, American Law and Economic Review, Experimental Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations, Journal of Law Economics and Organizations, Economic Inquiry and Southern Economic Journal.

Deck received his doctorate in economics from the University of Arizona in 2001. In the 2007-2008 academic year, he was a visiting professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Georgia State University.