Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand

Abstract

We propose a technique for assessing robustness to demand effects of findings from experiments and surveys. The core idea is that by deliberately inducing demand in a structured way we can bound its influence. We present a model in which participants respond to their beliefs about the researcher’s objectives. Bounds are obtained by manipulating those beliefs with “demand treatments.” We apply the method to 11 classic tasks, and estimate bounds averaging 0.13 standard deviations, suggesting that typical demand effects are probably modest. We also show how to compute demand-robust treatment effects and how to structurally estimate the model. (JEL C83, C90, D83, D91)