Welcome to the Experimental Laboratory for Finance and Economics (ELFE)
What is ELFE?
The ELFE is an experimental research laboratory focused on human decision-making in individual and interactive environments. The laboratory is used to conduct computer-based experiments using up to 33 participants. Researchers in ELFE are employing experimental economics which, over the past few decades, has been shown to be a useful tool to test and build economic theories.
This is what our lab looks like
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
We are looking for students to participate in our experiments. Participants are paid in cash or by money transfer within 12 hours of the end of each experiment. You can register following the instructions below. Registering only takes 5 minutes and, once registered, you will receive invitation emails with information about dates and times of upcoming experiments. After you receive an invitation email, you can decide whether or not you would like to sign up for that particular experiment.
You must be a student either at UCL or at another university in order to participate in our experiments. You need to show a valid student ID card when you show up for any experiment. If you do not have a student ID card on the day of the experiment, you will not be allowed to participate.
Here are some things to know about our experiments:
Experiments typically involve sitting at a desk while making choices in our lab (UCL, Department of Economics, Drayton House, Room 128). If the experiment is online, you will be asked to join a Zoom meeting, and make these choices from your home.
You will never be deceived, lied to, or tricked in any way.
There are no “right” or “wrong” answers, we are just interested in studying your choices. We do not assume any prior knowledge or specific skills from the participants.
You will be paid in cash or bank transfer on the day you participate in the experiment. For on-site experiments, you are guaranteed to earn at least £10 for registering and showing up on time. For online experiments, you will earn at least £10 if you complete the experiment. You will have the opportunity to earn much more money during the experiment. The extra amount you earn in the experiment depends on your choices, the choices of the other participants, and on chance. Since we have many different experiments, the amount you earn will also depend on the experiment being conducted that day.
WANT TO PARTICIPATE? FOLLOW THESE 4 STEPS
[1] Register for the “subject pool”. You can register for the subject pool using the link below. Registering will take less than 5 minutes. By registering to be in the ELFE subject pool, you indicate your intention to take part in experiments conducted at ELFE. When registering for the subject pool, please use your academic email address (e.g. @ucl.ac.uk) and do not use another email address(e.g. Gmail). You are not permitted to register on the system more than once. We will exclude subjects that create multiple accounts.
[2] Confirm your registration through an email sent to you. Once you are registered for the subject pool, you will immediately receive an email asking you to confirm your registration. Follow the link on the email to be a confirmed participant in our subject pool. If you have not received the confirmation email after 10 minutes, please first check your SPAM folder. If you still cannot find it, please email us from the email account you registered with to elfe.experiments@ucl.ac.uk.
[3] Accept an invitation for an experiment when you receive an invitation via email. Once you are confirmed as a subject pool participant, you are entered into the ELFE subject pool and are eligible to receive invitations for experiments. As experiments are planned to be conducted at ELFE, the online computer system will send you invitations to participate in experiments. Invitation emails will have an explicit date and time for an experiment. Look at the date and time of the experiment and if you can be available for the entirety of the experiment, you should feel free to sign up to participate.
[4] Show up for the experiment you signed up for. Please be timely for any experiment that you signed up for. The experiment starts at the time stated in the invitation email and reminder email. Anyone showing up after the scheduled start time is not guaranteed the show-up payment or the right to participate in the experiment. Because of this, we ask participants to arrive at least 10 minutes early, both for online and on-site experiments. You must show a valid student ID to participate in an ELFE experiment.
When you register, you'll have to agree to the experiment rules. You can see a copy of them by clicking on the Rules link to the left. Please read them as they'll give you an idea of how the experiments work.
