Raymond C. Battalio and John B. Van Huyck papers, 1949-2014, bulk dates 1972-2014

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Summary

Creator:
Battalio, Raymond Charles and Van Huyck, John B.
Abstract:
Raymond C. Battalio (1938-2004) and John B. Van Huyck (1956-2014) worked together as professors of economics at Texas A&M University. This collection primarily documents their professional lives through their correspondence, writings, research (especially experiments), and professional and faculty activities. It was acquired as part of the Economists' Papers Archive.
Extent:
90 Linear Feet (66 record cartons and 15 electronic records boxes.)
56.2 Gigabytes (10 sets.)
Language:
Materials in English.
Collection ID:
RL.11714

Background

Scope and content:

The Raymond C. Battalio and John B. Van Huyck papers document their careers as economists at Texas A&M University (TAMU), particularly their work developing the field of experimental economics in the 1990s. Their papers are combined in one collection given their close working relationship.

The primary subjects are behavioral game theory, experimental economics, and macroeconomics. There are records related to Battalio's presidency of the Economic Science Association, Van Huyck's activity for Experimental Economics, and the founding of the Economic Research Lab at TAMU.

The most common type of material by far is research files on experiments, but there are also many correspondence files, manuscript files for writings and referee reports, course files for teaching, and files for their professional activities as economists. To a lesser extent, there are university and department files for their activities as faculty members, plus personal files from Van Huyck (especially academic coursework and family material).

The greatest amount of professional correspondence is with Charles Holt, David Levine, Thomas Palfrey, Charles Plott, Alvin Roth, and Larry Samuelson. Battalio and Van Huyck communicated with many contributors to experimental economics, and there is a lesser amount of correspondence with James Andreoni, Colin Camerer, John Kagel, and Vernon Smith.

This collection contains 1,309 floppy disks, 245 optical disks, six hard drives, five quarter-inch cartridges, and three USB thumb drives. Most or all of them belonged to Van Huyck, and he migrated files and folders to newer storage mediums over time and created backups for security or home use. Electronic records from most of these items have been copied to a server and are available. 137 installation disks for software were retained (but not copied) for possible emulation in the future; a separate inventory of them is available by request from Research Services.

Biographical / historical:

Raymond C. Battalio (1938-2004) and John B. Van Huyck (1956-2014) were both white American academic economists who spent their entire careers at Texas A&M University (TAMU; 1969-2004 and 1984-2014, respectively).

Battalio earned a BS in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966 and a MS and PhD from Purdue University in 1968 and 1970, respectively, where he was supervised by Robert Basmann. He was one of the 12 founders of the Economic Science Association (ESA) in 1986 and served as its third president from 1988-1989, and he and Van Huyck founded the Economic Research Laboratory in 1997. He was married to Nancy Battalio, had three sons (Robert, Joe, and Eric Battalio), and was a US Navy veteran.

Van Huyck was the Rex B. Grey Professor of Economics at TAMU. He earned a BA in economics from the University of Virginia in 1979 and an MA and PhD from Brown University in 1982 and 1986, respectively, where he was supervised by Herschel Grossman. He was also active in the ESA and served as a board member. He was married to Patsy Johnson, had three sons (Carl Phillips, Don Ashfield, and Bjorn Bennett Van Huyck), and was a Cub Scout den leader.

Battalio began designing experiments in the 1970s to test consumer demand theory in token economies with John Kagel, and he also studied individual choice behavior in pigeons, rats, and humans; this work had broad appeal and was widely published in economics and psychology journals.

Van Huyck's early work was on sovereign debt and macroeconomics with Herschel Grossman, and it led him to develop an interest in coordination failures and studying these specifically through experiments with Battalio.

They are primarily known for their lab work on the problem of multiple equilibria in game theory. Along with Richard Biel, they carried out a series of experiments on coordination that began with the minimum-effort coordination game in 1990. Among their other experiments were ones on the emergence of conventions, chaotic dynamics, decentralized allocation, and average opinion and peasant-dictator games.

Acquisition information:
The Raymond C. Battalio and John B. Van Huyck papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library as gifts in 2016.
Processing information:

Processed by Jonathan Cogliano, 2020; Elizabeth Berenguer and Zachary Tumlin, 2023.

Accessions described in this collection guide: 2016-0128 and 2016-0222.

This material arrived from Battalio and Van Huyck's offices at Texas A&M University and was treated as one collection. Original order was preserved when possible, but substantial rehousing and arrangement was necessary for most of the collection, particularly experiment files. Experiment files were originally housed in one of two ways: 1) paper participant response forms were bound by rubber bands and stacked in collapsible pocket folders and 2) printouts of experiment data and other files were kept in three-ring binders alongside related digital media. Most experiment files were labeled with a code denoting the experiment type. In some cases, it was possible to connect experiment codes to specific topics in publications, but this was not possible in all cases. In these cases, generic classifications were made in the arrangement.

Arrangement:

The Raymond C. Battalio and John B. Van Huyck papers are arranged into six series: Correspondence, Conferences and Consulting, Writings, Research and Notes, Experiments, and Academia.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Contents

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Restrictions:

Access note. Some materials in this collection are fragile audio formats that may need to be reformatted before use. Contact Research Services for access.

Access note. Some materials in this collection are electronic records that require special equipment. Contact Research Services with questions.

Access restricted. Some materials in this collection are personnel records. Records pertaining to employment where individuals are identified are closed for 70 years.

Access restricted. Some electronic files in RL11714-SET-0008 contain personally identifiable information (PII) that has not been redacted. Contact Research Services for more information.

Terms of access:

The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the Rubenstein Library's Citations, Permissions, and Copyright guide.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Raymond C. Battalio and John B. Van Huyck papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.

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