What can we learn from macroeconomic models and empirical research? Can standard models deal with the situation and provide good policy advice? With academics and policymakers, we’ll be discussing how economics can help governments deal with macroeconomic shocks in times of high uncertainty.

Lecture:

Francesco Zanetti, Associate Professor in Economics, University of Oxford and David Richards Fellow of Wadham College

Moderated by:

Katrin Rabitsch, Associate Professor of Economics, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Further information and sign-up page
 

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Vortrag: Gabriel Felbermayr, Universitätsprofessor für Wirtschaftspolitik, WU; Direktor, Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (WIFO)

Podium und Moderation:

Ingrid Kubin, Universitätsprofessorin für Internationale Wirtschaft, WU; Vizepräsidentin des Vorstands, Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (WIFO)

Harald Oberhofer, Universitätsprofessor für Empirische Wirtschaftsforschung, WU; Senior Economist, Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (WIFO)
 

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The prestigious Nobel Prize honours outstanding scientists for research that often appears very complicated, sometimes even incomprehensible, to a broader public. This public lecture in economics explained the work of this year's Nobel laureates so that people from outside the field could also understand its significance and innovative character. Maarten Janssen, Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna, and Stefan Felder, head of Spectrum and Mobile Markets at the Rundfunk- und Telekom Regulierungs-GmbH, were keynote speakers and experts on the panel. Alvin E. Roth, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize and Professor of Economics at Stanford University, joined the lecture in a video interview with Ben Greiner (Department of Strategy and Innovation, WU). Tatjana Oppitz (Vice-Rector for Infrastructure and Digitalization, WU) opened the lecture and Maria Marchenko (Department of Economics, WU) moderated the event.

Keynote speaker Maarten Janssen introduced the research behind the work of Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, discussing the different auction formats and designs and their omnipresence in our everyday lives. He explored one of the most crucial terms in auction theory, the winner’s curse. This decribes the regret a winning bidder at an auction feels for having bid more than the probable real value for an item, which impacts the design of auctions and biding methods. His reflections were followed by an online interview with Alvin E. Roth, who talked about his research in market design as the basis for auction theory and design. The second keynote speaker, Stefan Felder, gave a lecture on applied auction theory using spectrum auctions as an example. In Austria, auctions are the dominant mechanism for awarding spectrum usage rights. Stefan Felder discussed options for organizing spectrum auctions and the challenges of finding the right auction design and format, then closed with an analysis of the recent 5G auction in Austria.
 

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The title of the lecture hints at an interesting and surprising connection between evolution, economics, and moral philosophy, that Jörgen Weibull discovered together with Ingela Alger a few years ago. The topic is a very relevant one: Mainstream economics has for many years been confronted with the accusation of relying on fundamentally wrong assumptions about human behavior, encapsulated in the rational and selfish homo economicus.

Behavioral economics has responded with a variety of theoretical models that typically keep the rationality assumption but replace selfishness with some kind of social preferences. This approach still follows the usual assumption that preferences are exogenously given.

Weibull and Alger went an important step further and asked the question where preferences come from. They turned to Darwinian evolution as an explanation and built a very general model of the evolution of preferences. Surprisingly it turned out that evolved human motivations present themselves as a mixture of selfishness, morality, and a little bit of envy, where the morality part resembles Kant’s categorical imperative.

These competitive moralists can indeed be identified in laboratory experiments with human subjects, and in his talk Jörgen Weibull explored the implications these types of motivations have on economic behavior and economic policy.

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What are the Costs of Violence?

WU Matters. WU Talks. | Dec 18, 2018 | Keynote Speaker: Anke Hoeffler

This year's keynote speaker Anke Hoeffler, currently working at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, gave a lecture on “What Are the Costs of Violence?”

If you follow the news, you cannot help but get the impression that our world is an extremely violent place. Regular images of devastation from Syrian cities look shockingly similar to computer-​games of post-​apocalyptic worlds -- but this is reality. Terrorist bomb attacks and mass shootings have become routine. Multiple armed conflicts drag on and on, punctuated by sudden escalations that get them back on the front pages for a time, e.g. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Kashmir, Eastern Congo, South Sudan, Darfur, Somalia, Libya.

If you go by the headlines, you would conclude that most human violence against other humans in our world takes the form of civil war and perhaps other lower-​level armed conflicts. You might even conclude that terrorist attacks are a major source of deaths from violence. This lecture will take you behind the headlines and suggest that the impression you get from the news coverage is misleading. Every year the amount of violence due to civil war and terrorism is dwarfed by that due to interpersonal violence - chiefly, homicide; assault and, in particular, assaults against women; and severe physical abuse of children. Thus, the resulting economic and social costs of interpersonal violence are substantially greater than those of civil war and terrorism.

In contrast, aid spending on programs related to civil war violence and terrorism is orders of magnitude greater than spending on programs specifically focused on reducing interpersonal violence. However, there is at present no good reason to think that aid and policy effort to redress the costs of collective violence (basically, civil war and terrorism) are likely to be much more effective than aid and policy effort directed towards reducing interpersonal violence and its costs.

Finally, since so much more international aid and policy focus currently goes to addressing the costs of collective violence, there is a strong case that in this domain the international community is missing the forest for certain trees. Substantially more should be invested in aid and policy focus on reducing homicide, violence against women, and violence against children.

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The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

December 19, 2017 | Keynote Speaker: Martin Wolf

Am 19.12.2017 referierte Martin Wolf, Chef-​Kommentator und Mitherausgeber der Financial Times und einer der weltweit einflussreichsten Wirtschaftsjournalisten, im Rahmen der Veranstaltung WU matters. WU talks. an der WU zum Thema „The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism“. Bei diesem vom Department für Volkswirtschaft organisierten Vortrag standen die Rolle des Populismus in der politischen Landschaft der westlichen Welt und die Nachhaltigkeit der gegenwärtigen liberalen demokratischen Strukturen im Vordergrund.

Nach einem kurzen Eingangsreferat diskutierte er gemeinsam mit Ewald Nowotny, Gouverneur der Oesterreichischen Nationalbank, über aktuelle Entwicklungen und die komplexen Beziehungen zwischen Kapitalismus, dem freien Markt und der Demokratie. Anschließend widmete er sich den Fragen des Publikums.

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Forschungsinstitutionen zwischen akademischer Exzellenz und politischer Relevanz

12. Oktober 2016

Keynote Speaker: Klaus Zimmermann (Princeton)

Diskutant*innen:

Martin Kocher (IHS)

Margit Schratzenstaller (WIFO)

Peter Brandner (Weis[s]e Wirtschaft)

Reinhard Christl (Medienberater & Ökonom)

Moderation:

Harald Oberhofer (WIFO/WU)
 

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Banking Stress Test on Returns and Risk

Lecture and Discussion | Monday, December 1 2014 | 18.00 (6 p.m.) | Ceremonial Hall 2, LC

• Jakob de Haan (Netherlands Central Bank & University of Groningen)

• Discussant: Robert Ferstl (OeNB)

Invitation

The Department of Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business would like to invite you to the next WU-Lecture in Economics.

Jakob de Haan (Netherlands Central Bank) will deliver a lecture entitled „Banking Stress Test Effects on Returns and Risks” and Robert Ferstl (OeNB) will act as a discussant.

Refreshments and a buffet will be provided after the lecture.

The event will take place on Monday December 1st  at  18:00 in the Library & Learning Center Building (LC), Ceremonial Hall 2, at the Campus WU, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna.

Registration

Please register by November 25th via online form or email: vwz-events@wu.ac.at

 

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What can Monetary Policy (still) do?

Lecture and Discussion | Wednesday, December 4 2013 | 18.00 | Ceremonial Hall 2, LLC

In order to celebrate the opening of the Department of Economics at the new WU Campus we would like to invite you to our Lecture on the effectiveness of Monetary Policy.

• Luca Onorante (Central Bank of Ireland)

• Discussant: Claudia Kwapil (OeNB)>>Präsentation

Refreshments and a buffet will be provided after the lecture

Campus Tour

 Before the beginning of the WU-Lecture it is possible to take part in a guided tour of the new campus. If you want to participate in the tour, please announce it in your registration email.

The meeting point for the tour is the Info-Point in the ground floor of the LC building at 16:45

 

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Economics of Climate Change: Trends, drivers, and mitigation

Lecture by David I. Stern | Monday, November 12th 2012 | 17.00 - 19.00

Program

3 p.m. / 15.00
An introduction to IPCC and Kaya identity (dedicated to students)
5 p.m. / 17.00
Economics of Climate Change: Trends, drivers, and mitigation

 

Flyer:

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Staatsschuldenkrise und Staatsinsolvenz

3-teiliger Vortragszyklus im Wintersemester 2011/12 | im Festsaal der WU, UZA1, 1. Stock

Die dreiteilige Vortragsreihe wurde vom VW-Zentrum in Zusammenarbeit mit Michael Tojner von GEP Global Equity Partners und der Mastervertretung organisiert. Ausgehend von einem Rückblick auf vergangene Staatsschuldenkrisen soll das Thema von verschiedenen Standpunkten aus beleuchtet werden. Hochrangige VerteterInnen der Wirtschaft konnten gewonnen werden, einen Einblick in ihre Sicht auf die Krisenentwicklung zu geben. Die Veranstaltung im Festsaal der WU erfreute sich großen Interesses. Die Moderation übernahm Univ.Prof. Dr. Jesus Crespo-Cuaresma (Institut für Geld- und Finanzpolitik, VW-Zentrum).

Die Folien und Mitschnitte aller drei Lectures sind über WU-TV verfügar.

1. Termin: Historische und theoretische Betrachtung

am 25. Oktober 2011

Der erste Termin des dreiteiligen Vortragszyklus zu Staatsschuldenkrisen lockte neben zahlreichen Studierenden, MitarbeiterInnen der WU und hochrangigen VertreterInnen von Banken unnd Versicherungen auch das staatliche Fernsehen. Gleich mehrere JournalistInnen hingen an Ewald Nowotnys Lippen. Zum Start sollte versucht werden, einen Überblick über den Hintergrund und Verlauf vergangener Staatsinsolvenzen zu geben. Den PowerPoint-gestützten Vorträgen der drei Podiumsgäste folgte eine interessante Diskussion, an der sich auch das Publikum rege beteiligte. Im Anschluss gab es natürlich auch die Gelegenheit bei Sekt und Selters in lockerer Atmosphäre zu plaudern.

mit:

• Prof. Dr. Ewald Nowotny (Gouverneur der Österreichischen Nationalbank)

• DDr. Michael Tojner (Vorstand Global Equity Partners)

• Mag. Willi Hemetsberger (Senior Partner Ithuba Capital AG

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2. Termin: Kapitalmarktaspekte

am 18. November 2011

mit:

• Mag. Stefan Bruckbauer (Leiter der Abetilung Economics & Market Analysis Austria der Unicredit Bank Austria)

• Mag. Werner Krendl (Managing Partner der ELEVEN Biotech Acceleration GmbH)

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3. Termin: Rechtliche, regulatorische und institutionelle Überlegungen und Lösungsansätze

am 19. Jänner 2012

mit:

• Dr. Josef Christl (Managing Director von Macro Consult, ehemaliger Direktor der OeNB sowie ehemaliger Gastprofessor an der WU)

• Em.o.Prof. DDDr. Waldemar Hummer (früherer Vorstand des Instituts für Europarecht und Völkerrecht und Leiter des Forschungsschwerpunkts "Europäische Integration" der Rechtswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Innsbruck)

• DDr. Michael Tojner (Vorstand Global Equity Partners)

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