Spring 2027

Experimental Economics

Examines laboratory and field experiments for economic questions, focusing on experiment design, result interpretation, and applications in policy, development, markets, and behavior.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 David Hansen3.0/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · David Hansen

The course structure made the material unnecessarily confusing, and the instructor seemed to have trouble getting to the root of the papers.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe what experimental economics is and is not.

  • Discuss the fundamental statistical tools and issues relating to experimental methods in economics.

  • Design, carry out, and evaluate the results of basic economic experiments using concepts from survey design, applied statistics, game theory, and behavioral economics.

  • Explain important economic models, experiments, games, and experimental results in the development and application of experimental economics.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
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BC
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

(ECON 301 or 311) and ECON 310

ECON 535

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

David Hansen

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.78/5 from 73 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

For this course: 3.0/5 raw quality · 3.0/5 difficulty · 1 reviews

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · David Hansen

David Hansen was described as smart and passionate, though students found the class structure unnecessarily confusing. Some feedback noted that he struggled to highlight the core takeaways of the papers.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.12 GPA, 42.9% A/AB (n=21 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.28 GPA, 51.4% A/AB (n=37 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

DAVID HANSEN is recorded teaching in Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 450

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · David Hansen

David Hansen was described as smart and passionate, though the class structure made the material unnecessarily confusing at times.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.12 GPA, 42.9% A/AB (n=21 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.28 GPA, 51.4% A/AB (n=37 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · David Hansen

The course structure made the material unnecessarily confusing, and the instructor seemed to have trouble getting to the root of the papers.

Past student reviews · David Hansen

The instructor appeared to have difficulty identifying what he wanted students to know from the assigned papers.

Topics

  • Economic policy, development economics, uncertainty, market behavior, market design, auctions, finance, altruism, and bargaining.
  • Statistical models, survey design, game theory, incentives, and behavioral economics.

Skills

  • Designing economic experiments and understanding their results.
  • Applying statistical models, survey design, game theory, incentive understanding, and behavioral economics.
  • Carrying out and evaluating basic economic experiments.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
ECON 535 · Spring 2027

Experimental Economics

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:296:026807",
    "course_id": "ECON 535",
    "course_uid": "course_5f0d7265bac8703e26c7163e",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "026807",
    "source_subject_id": "296",
    "title": "Experimental Economics",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "3f666ffe90f8dd9e1848839f29137dc2328197727202c7c557eba376a72c86f0",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}