Risk preferences, Inconsistent choices, Financial decisions, Experiments, C91, D81,

Laboratory experiments have proven increasingly useful in all areas of economics. This paper discusses the methodology of experimental economics, highlights its strengths and weaknesses, discusses many of the applications of experimental methods to public economics, and suggests topics in which future applications may also prove useful. "Argument is conclusive. .. but. .. it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it fi nds it by the method of experiment. For if any man who never saw fi re proved by satisfactory arguments that fi re burns, his hearer's mind would never be satisfi ed, nor would he avoid the fi re until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught."-Roger Bacon (1928)

We use lab experiments to study policies that address common pool resource overuse. We look at a price mechanism, specifically a Pigouvian subsidy, and four non-price interventions. The non-price policies are information alone, information with a normative message, communication alone, and normative messages with communication allowed. In all experiment sessions, no intervention occurs in the first seven and last seven rounds, allowing us to examine the effects of introducing and taking away a policy. The subsidy leads to near-efficient extraction, but surprisingly leads groups that were not over-extracting to also reduce extraction. This over-compliance decreases efficiency, although on net the subsidy is the most efficiency-enhancing intervention. Information provision, communication, normative appeals, and normative appeals combined with communication all reduce over-extraction (though by less than the subsidy) without exacerbating over-compliance; however, the effects of information alone and communication alone are small and not robust. The non-price policies cause a decline in over-extraction of from 0.549% (information) to 11.441% (normative appeals with communication). These effects are of the same order of magnitude as the effects seen in major field studies of conservation messaging. The subsidy has the worst persistence properties (after the intervention ceases), while normative messages with communication have the best. JEL Classifications: H41, H21, C91, C92, D62, D83

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for comments on this paper and collaboration on the ad hoc committee. I am also grateful to Belinda Archibong, David Just, and Todd Schmit for participating with me on the panel at NAREA's 2018 conference, and to all members who've given feedback on these issues.