Smeal College To Unveil New Laboratory For Economic And Management Sciences
Faculty, staff and students in Penn State's Smeal College of Business will get a preview next week of the new Laboratory for Economic and Management Sciences.
Faculty, staff and students in Penn State's Smeal College of Business
will get a preview next week of the new Laboratory for Economic and Management
Sciences.
An "Opening Event" for the laboratory is scheduled to take
place 4:30 p.m., Thursday, March 22, in Room 313 of the Beam Building.
It will include a demonstration of software by Associate Professor Gary
Bolton, Assistant Professor Elena Katok and Assistant Professor Tony Kwasnica.
"This laboratory provides researchers in economics and management
with a lab environment in which the object of study can be manipulated
in a controlled way, much as lab techniques are used in the natural sciences.
This will greatly benefit the faculty and students throughout Smeal College,"
explains Bolton. The associate professor of Management Science and Information
Systems will direct the laboratory.
The lab houses a computer network designed to simulate business activities
such as markets and negotiations. Ongoing areas of inquiry include auctions,
bargaining and dispute resolution, electronic market and mechanism design,
and decision support systems. In addition to research, the Laboratory
for the Economic and Management Sciences (LEMS) produces classroom software,
providing students with hands-on demonstrations of market principles and
economic decision-making behavior.
Bolton notes that faculty and students will start using the laboratory
this semester and that a dedication event will take place in the Fall
2001.
LEMS was made possible by grants from IBM, the Smeal College of Business Administration and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
