Marktdesign und Experimentelle Wirtschaftsforschung

Economic engineering is the science of designing real‐world institutions and mechanisms that align individual incentives and behavior with the underlying goals. Institutions matter because they affect incentives, and decision makers respond to incentives. Yet, they do not always do so rationally. Experimental economics complements economic theory by observing the performance of mechanisms in the context of actual decision processes faced by real people. It also answers questions that cannot be answered by theory and field data, tests hypotheses and identifies causalities suggested by theory and field observations, collects facts and phenomena that may stimulate behavioral theories of market design, eases cross‐disciplinary cooperation, and communicates economic research to market participants, managers and other real‐world decision makers. This article presents selected examples to illustrate how experimental economics may interplay with the more traditional economic toolbox to promote economic engineering both in research and in practice.