As economics become a science that continuously explains and predicts human action and interaction, Daniel Houser sets the foundational principles of economic experiments, sharing the situations that take place in a laboratory when trials are being carried out.

He shares basic elements that must be present in the process, such as environments, outcomes, information, messages, and production; and also tells about the different types of experiments that can be performed, about the role of the experimenter to control and observe, the significance of incentives and the fact that credibility and extrapolation are questioned in the trials.

Houser comments on how laboratory experiments make the study of complex environments feasible; nevertheless, states that they differ from the actions taken within a natural setting, establishing though, that the process by which decisions are made, should be the same in both surroundings.