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Assessing the Correspondence between Experimental Results Obtained in the Lab and Field: A Review of Recent Social Science Research*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2014

Alexander Coppock  and
Donald P. Green
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Abstract

A small but growing social science literature examines the correspondence between experimental results obtained in lab and field settings. This article reviews this literature and reanalyzes a set of recent experiments carried out in parallel in both the lab and field. Using a standardized format that calls attention to both the experimental estimates and the statistical uncertainty surrounding them, the study analyzes the overall pattern of lab-field correspondence, which is found to be quite strong (Spearman's ρ = 0.73). Recognizing that this correlation may be distorted by the ad hoc manner in which lab-field comparisons are constructed (as well as the selective manner in which results are reported and published), the article concludes by suggesting directions for future research, stressing in particular the need for more systematic investigation of treatment effect heterogeneity.

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Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 113 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2014 

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Footnotes

*Alexander Coppock is a PhD student, Department of Political Science, Columbia University, 420 West 118th Street, Suite 710, New York, NY 10025 (ac3242@columbia.edu). Donald P. Green is Professor of Political Science, Columbia University, 420 West 118th Street, Suite 710, New York, NY 10025 (dpg2110@columbia.edu). We are grateful to Oliver Armantier, Peter Aronow, Lindsay Dolan, Uri Gneezy, John List, Jennifer Jerit, Andrej Tusicisny and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments, Glenn Harrison and Nicholas Valentino for graciously providing replication data, and to Johannes Abeler and Ido Erev for providing supplementary information. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2014.10

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Supplementary material: Link

Coppock and Green Datasets

Datasets

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/22808
Link
Supplementary material: Link

Coppock & Green Dataset

Dataset

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/25543
Link
Supplementary material: Link

Coppock and Green code and data to replicate results

Code Ocean

https://doi.org/10.24433/CO.1998f084-503c-41b1-b86c-aa481346b7eb
Link
Supplementary material: File

Coppock and Green Supplementary Material

Appendix

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