Experimental Data from Duffy and Ochs (2002)

The paper, "Intrinsically Worthless Objects as Media of Exchange: Experimental Evidence," International Economic Review vol. 43 (2002), pp. 637-673, authored by John Duffy and Jack Ochs of the Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, reports and analyzes data from 14 experimental sessions with paid human subjects. This page provides access to the raw data from all 14 sessions.

The data are organized by session number, as reported in the Duffy-Ochs paper. Each session consists of a number of games, and each game consists of a number of rounds. Clicking on a session number below will provide you with a directory listing of all the games played in that session. Clicking on one of these games will reveal the entire data record (all rounds) for that game. Each data record may be saved (downloaded) by anyone interested in this data. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number SBR95-07968.

Session Number | A1 | A2 | A3 | B1 | B2 | B3 | C1 | C2 | C3 | D1 | D2 | D3 | D4 | D5 |

Data Notes

The individual game filenames record the date the game was played and the *.di extension, where i=1,2,3,.. reveals the ordering of the games played in that session. The file containing the data record for the first game of every session (session.d1) includes all parameter values used in the session and the number of subjects.

The data for each game are organized under the following heading:

Rnd Type GInS MType MGInS g1 g2 t1 t2 NetPay1 NetPay2 Tpt1 Tpt2 Pno MPno

Here is a key to the variable names:

Rnd = Round Number.
Type = Player Type (of the first player).
GInS = Good this Player Had in Storage.
MType = Matched Player Type (the type of the second player).
MGInS = Matched Player's Good in Storage.
g1=1 if the first player meets his consumption good, 0 otherwise.
g2=1 if the second player meets his consumption good, 0 otherwise.
t1=1 if the first player offers to trade, 0 otherwise.
t2=1 if the second player offers to trade, 0 otherwise.
NetPay1 = Net payoff (in points) from the round for the first player.
NetPay2 = Net payoff (in points) from the round for the second player.
Tpt1 = Accumulated total points (since the start of the game) for the first player.
Tpt2 = Accumulated total points (since the start of the game) for the second player.
Pno = Player number of the first player.
MPno = Player number of the matched, second player.

Appended to the bottom of each game record, under the heading "Historical Information" are the round-by-round historical average percentages of each type storing each good as of the end of each round. These data are under headings "Pij", where i=type and j=good in storage.