It is with great pleasure that we welcome readers to the inaugural issue of the Journal of Experimental Politics (JEPS). JEPS is the official journal of the Organized Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) on Experimental Research. We are greatly honored to have been selected by the section as the first editors of the journal, and wanted to take this opportunity to briefly share with readers our vision for the journal, some interesting new—dare we say experimental?—policies that we have put in place for the journal, as well as the content in this first issue.

While most research on electoral monitors has focused on the effect of electoral monitors on politicians and their behavior in terms of committing electoral fraud, this study examines the effect of electoral monitors on citizens, and their effect, in particular, on people's perceptions of electoral integrity and behavior in terms of turnout at the polls. To examine this relationship, I conducted a field experiment around the 2009/2010 municipal elections in Kosova, which varied the amount of information people had about the responsibilities of monitors in these elections. In the experiment, people who had more information about the monitors' responsibilities believed that the elections were more free and fair than those who had less information, and also believed that the monitors helped make these elections more free and fair, even though they were not more likely to vote as a result.

We identify the impact of transparency in political decision-making on the quality of political representation with a difference-in-difference strategy. The quality of political representation is measured by the observed divergence of parliamentary decisions from revealed voter preferences on identical issues. We show that full transparency of votes of individual politicians does not decrease divergence from voter preferences.

When do citizens take action to benefit the public good, even when individual benefits are scant or non-existent? We address this question with a focus on an area of critical importance when it comes to environmental sustainability—specifically, we examine citizens' actions in the domain of energy conservation. We do so by using a survey experiment to evaluate the impact of exposure to communications posited to shape collective action behavior. We find that communications shape behavior depending on two primary factors not previously studied in concert: to whom responsibility is attributed for collective outcomes; and, what effects, or consequences, are associated with one's actions. We find that communications emphasizing individual responsibility and collective environmental benefits can stimulate collective action.

Several scholars have argued that abundant natural resources can be harmful to economic performance under bad institutions and helpful when institutions are good. These arguments have either been theoretical or based on naturally occurring variation in natural resource wealth. We test this theory by using a laboratory experiment to reap the benefits of randomized control. We conduct this experiment in a virtual world (Second Life™) to make institutions more visceral. We find support for the theory.

Experimentation is an increasingly popular method among political scientists. While experiments are highly advantageous for creating internally valid conclusions, they are often criticized for being low on external validity. Critical to questions of external validity are the types of subjects who participate in a given experiment, with scholars typically arguing that samples of adults are more externally valid then student samples. Despite the vociferousness of such arguments, these claims have received little empirical treatment. In this paper we empirically test for key differences between student and adult samples by conducting four parallel experiments on each of the three samples commonly used by political scientists. We find that our student and diverse, national adult sample behave consistently and in line with theoretical predictions once relevant moderators are taken into account. The same is not true for our adult convenience sample.

The Standards Committee of the Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association has produced reporting guidelines that aim to increase the clarity of experimental research reports. This paper describes the Committee's rationale for the guidelines it developed and includes our Recommended Reporting Standards for Experiments (Laboratory, Field, Survey). It begins with a content analysis of current reporting practices in published experimental research. Although researchers report most important aspects of their experimental designs and data, we find substantial omissions that could undermine the clarity of research practices and the ability of researchers to assess the validity of study conclusions. With the need for reporting guidelines established, the report describes the process the Committee used to develop the guidelines, the feedback received during the comment period, and the rationale for the final version of the guidelines.