Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to deepen our comprehension of Lab in the Field Experiments (LFEs) by examining the practices of experimentalists in Colombia, using semi-structured interviews. The analysis is framed within Jasanoff's interpretative concept of the co-production of knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to extend the understanding of lab in the field experiments (LFEs) through the study of the practices –based on semi-structured interviews– of experimentalists who have worked in Colombia. LFEs constitute a hybrid methodology that combines elements from laboratory and field experiments. From the laboratory, LFEs inherit laboratory-based games and controlled settings where participants are outside their everyday decision-making environments. Conversely, the field dimension involves the social and individual characteristics of the population that participates in the experiment (Favereau, 2021). This essay analyses the movement of lab-in-the-field experimentalists toward the field, using Jasanoff's interpretative framework of co-production of knowledge.

The Colombian case was chosen because the Colombian researcher Juan Camilo Cárdenas is one of the three pioneers (along with A. Barr and J. Henrich) in the use of LFEs and has carried out a wide variety of experiments in Colombia since the 1990s. Additionally, there is a vibrant community of lab-in-the-field experimentalists who are scattered in different universities and fields.

My analysis focuses on two key elements of LFEs which are encompassed under the concept of co-production of knowledge: the application of qualitative methods as a platform for mutual learning between researchers and participants and the role of interdisciplinarity. Drawing on Nagatsu (2021) and Jasanoff (2004), I argue that LFEs in Colombia reveal a double interplay within LFEs in Colombia: one between subjects and experimentalists, and another between experimental economists and researchers of diverse disciplines.