About the Center

The Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science (ICES) at George Mason University is a research center and laboratory affiliated with the Antonin Scalia Law School, School of Business, Department of Economics in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Mercatus Center. ICES was founded in 2001 by Vernon Smith (2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics), and it has been directed by Daniel Houser since 2009.

Experimental economics represents the effort to bring the experimental method that has long been employed to good effect in the natural sciences to bear on the study of economics. ICES brings together researchers and students interested in using the methods of experimental economics to answer research questions from a variety of fields. Using both laboratory and field experiments, research at ICES has been conducted in such areas as public choice, development, bargaining, neuroscience, and economic systems design.  

In 2019, the Center for the Study of Neuroeconomics (CSN), led by Kevin McCabe, was incorporated into ICES. The Center for the Study of Neuroeconomics was a research center and laboratory dedicated to the experimental study of how emergent mental computations in the brain interact with the emergent computations of institutions to produce legal, political, and economic order.