Charles R. Plott is a pioneer in the field of experimental economics and political science. In the 1970s, he developed laboratory experimental methods for economics and political science and produced many of the basic experiments that set the stage for using laboratory methods to test and to better understand economic and political theories. The use of his methods has now exploded, and the laboratory that Plott founded at Caltech, the Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Political Science (EEPS), serves as a model for others around the world. The use of laboratory methods supports the study of theories that would be impossible to sturdy in naturally occurring settings. His research has produced some of the most fundamental discoveries in economics and political science, including principles governing convergence and stability of multiple market systems and voting processes. In addition, he has applied laboratory tools to complex policies related to the environment, transportation, communication, and energy.

Most recently, Plott's research has focused on two areas. The first is the design of information aggregation mechanisms, which are related to the classical notions of rational expectations and are used for gathering useful information that's otherwise scattered among individuals in the form of intuitions and opinions. The second issue is the design and execution of experiments with complex systems that can operate successfully under conditions that often cause market processes to fail, such as externalities, public goods, non-convexities, asymmetric information, and complex coordination. Such research includes methods for testing systems when operating at large scale. He was the first to conduct experiments in which people from around the globe participate in a single market.

Plott was on the faculty at Purdue University from 1965 to 1970 and has held visiting appointments at the University of Chicago in 1980, the University of Southern California Law Center in 1976, and Stanford University from 1968 to 1969. He has been the director of Caltech's Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Political Science since 1987. Among his numerous awards and honors are membership in the National Academy of Sciences (2007) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985), and honorary degrees from L'Université Pierre-Mendès-France (1996) and Purdue University (1995). He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association (2008), a fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (2011), and a fellow of the Econometric Society (1985). He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1981–1982 and a Fulbright Scholar in 2006. He was inducted into the College of Business Administration Hall of Fame at Oklahoma State University in 1988. Plott has previously served as president of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, the Economic Science Association, the Southern Economic Association, the Public Choice Society, and the Western Economic Association.