A portrait of the institute

The institute is interested in understanding the motivation for and the roots of economic behavior, as well as the influence of institutions on such behavior, with an emphasis on how institutional design can improve human decision making. The institute has two departments and one independent research group: Market Design and Behavior (Ockenfels), Experimental Economics (Sutter), and Behavioral Economics and Data Science (Schneider). Our research includes the formation of economic preferences, such as risk, time and social preferences; the design of markets and institutions; paternalism; fairness and redistributive preferences, as well as development economics.