Does it make sense to pay children for reading books? Should surrogacy be allowed (and compensated with money)? Many countries forbid payments to blood donators, while in Germany, monetary incentives are used frequently. What position is right?

Questions of this kind will be studied in our block seminar. Students develop their own ideas for an economic experimental design. Impulses may be received from Michael Sandel (Justice, What Money Can’t Buy), Al Roth (repugnant activities), Ernst Fehr (child intervention studies, papers on cooperative behavior), Uri Gneezy (crowding-out of pro-social behavior, conscience accounting), or Dan Ariely (e.g., on lying). For more references, see “Morals and Markets“ by Armin Falk and Nora Szech.

Students may work individually or in pairs of two. The seminar starts with an introductory meeting at the beginning of the semester. Ideas for some lab or field experiment will be presented in a block event in June or July 2014, each presentation lasting about 30 minutes. Seminar papers of about 10 pages are to be handed in by September 1, 2014.

Grades will be based on the quality of presentations (30%), discussions in the seminar (20%), and the seminar paper (50%). Participation will be limited to 12 students. 

For further questions, please contact Jannis Engel. Application will be possible in February via centralized system, details on the application process will follow shortly on our homepage.