Bogotá Experimental Economics Conference – Tercera Edición “BEEC 2020: Foundations of Economic Decisions”

The use of experimental methods has been rapidly gaining ground in economics research. Thus, the total number of publications that use experimental methods in the five most prestigious economy magazines went from less than 5 publications per year in the seventies, to 35-40 publications per year in 2014. Likewise, the importance in economy of the experimental methods and their close relation with the behavior seen from psychology has become evident with the granting of the Economy Nobel Prize to five referents and pioneers in the use of these experimental methods: Daniel Kahneman, Elinor Ostrom, Alvin Roth, Vernon Smith and Richard Thaler.

The Faculty of Economics of the Universidad del Rosario is not unaware of the proliferation of the use of experimental methods in economic research, and its group "Rosario Experimental and Behavioral Economics Lab" - REBEL has been consolidating itself as a reference in Colombia and Latin America due to the number of researchers (four career professors, two affiliated professors, one postdoctoral researcher and five postgraduate students), but also due to its active role as a promoter of spaces for academic interaction: the annual organization of the "Bogotá Experimental Economics Conference" - BEEC, which is preceded by a training workshop for students and professors from the region interested in experimental methods applied to the social sciences, and the co-organization of a fortnightly space where professors and students from the Universidad del Rosario, Universidad de los Andes, Universidad Nacional and Universidad Javeriana present and discuss their research projects with experimental and behavioral elements.

The first edition of BEEC, in 2018, featured special presentations by Colin Camerer (CalTech) and Charles Noussair (The University of Arizona) and seventeen additional presentations by professors from the United States, Germany, Holland, United Kingdom, Austria, Chile, Mexico, and Colombia. The acceptance rate to the conference was 54%, so we opened as an additional space a poster session in which PhD students from the United States, Holland and Italy, as well as several of our PhD and Masters students, could present their work and experimental designs to the researchers attending the conference.

Resultados esperados de la Conferencia:
1. Garantizar la participación auto-financiada de al menos doce investigadores provenientes de universidades y otros centros de investigación de afuera de Colombia
2. Garantizar la participación auto-financiada de al menos seis investigadores provenientes de universidades y otros centros de investigación ubicados en Colombia (si bien es auto-financiada, continuaremos ofreciendo un precio subsidiado de inscripción a la Conferencia para investigadores colombianos e investigadores ubicados en Colombia)
3. Posicionar a REBEL – el laboratorio de Economía Experimental de la Universidad del Rosario, como referente en Colombia y Latinoamérica
4. Dar a conocer los servicios de outsourcing de REBEL (actualmente uno de los participantes de REBEL 2018 se encuentra utilizando nuestros servicios del laboratorio)
5. Promover la realización de otros espacios académicos con la red de investigadores que asistan a BEEC 2020
Resultados esperados del workshop:
1. Garantizar la inscripción de al menos veinte personas al workshop, y que al menos diez de ellos sean externos a la Universidad del Rosario
2. Introducir a los participantes del workshop a temas de investigación que utilizan experimentos de toma de decisión con una visión más interdisciplinaria
3. Discutir posibilidades de cooperación para proyectos de investigación en neuroeconomía. Específicamente, discutir cómo superar las barreras evidentes de contar con poblaciones de interés en Colombia, pero carecer de la tecnología para realizar este tipo de estudios de forma asequible.