Social Science Special Projects and Facilities

The Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Political Science (EEPS)
The EEPS Laboratory is devoted to the development and applications of a laboratory experimental methodology for a broad range of disciplines. Research is focused on basic research issues, applied research issues, and the development of supporting technology.

The Caltech Laboratory for Experimental Finance (CLEF)
CLEF is dedicated to the study of financial markets by designing its own, tightly-parameterized financial markets, and studying their workings. Its goal is to understand the basic principles, if there are any, behind the pricing, trading and information aggregation in financial markets.

USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics (CSLP)
CSLP enables scholars to produce empirical and quantitative analyses of the relationship among voters, democratic institutions, the political process, and law. The Center is a unique network of inter-connected scholars drawn from diverse disciplines such as law, political science, economics, public administration, psychology, and communications who not only seek to explain the process of political preference formation and its effect on political institutions, but also focus on how, if at all, voters might become more knowledgeable about political decisions and issues.

Gambit
Gambit is a library of game theory software and tools for the construction and analysis of finite extensive and normal form games. All Gambit source code has always been freely available and is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Internet Surveys of American Opinion
ISAO is a Caltech-based research project focused on developing internet-based survey research methodologies. Principal investigators are R. Michael Alvarez and Robert Sherman.

Program for Law & Technology
The Program for Law & Technology at Caltech and Loyola Law School brings scientists, engineers, and lawyers together to explore new developments at the intersection of law and technology.

William D. Hacker Social Science Experimental Laboratory (SSEL)
The SSEL is located in the basement of Baxter Hall. Here experiments are conducted electronically through networked computers at the laboratory. The experiments have many applications, including: auction experiments, bargaining experiments, jury rules, public good experiments, marketing, and finance.

The Turing Project
The Turing Project organizes and conducts the Turing Tournament, a two-sided tournament designed to find, on the one hand, the best computer programs to mimic human behavior, and on the other hand, the best computer programs to detect the difference between machine and human behavior.

California Social Science Experimental Laboratory (CASSEL)
CASSEL is a joint project of UCLA, Caltech, and the National Science Foundation. Human subjects participate in closely observed experiments to help social scientists better understand decision-making.

Voting Technology Project (VTP)
The Voting Technology Project, a joint research effort by Caltech and MIT researchers, evaluates the reliability and uniformity of U.S. voting systems and proposes specific guidelines and requirements.