News
Defensio Dissertationis of Anna Matzner

© WU TV
September 2025
On Thursday, 18 September 2025 at 2 pm, the Defensio Dissertationis of Anna Matzner will take place in the department meeting room D4.2.008. She will present her research on “Essays in Macroeconomics”.
Doctoral Committee: Harald Badinger (WU Wien), Katrin Rabitsch (WU Wien), Paul Pichler (Universität Wien)
Defensio Dissertationis of Ulrich Wohak

© WU TV
August 2025
On Wednesday, August 20th at 3 pm, the Defensio Dissertationis of Ulrich Wohak will take place in the department meeting room D4.2.008.
He will present his research on the topic of “Essays in Applied Economics”.
Doctoral Committee: Florian Szücs (WU), Peter Brummund (University of Alabama) and Klaus Gugler (WU)
Defensio Dissertationis of Lukas Vashold

© WU TV
August 2025
On Monday, August 4th at 3pm, the Defensio Dissertationis of Lukas Vashold will take place in the department meeting room D4.2.008. He will present his research on the topic „Essays in Environmental Economics"
Doctoral Committee: Jesus Crespo-Cuaresma (WU), Juliano Assuncao (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro) and Michael Obersteiner (University of Oxford)
Defensio Dissertationis of Thomas Wiedenhofer

© VERDINO| Angelika Schiemer
June 2025
On Thursday, June 12 at 4 pm, the Defensio Dissertationis of Thomas Wiedenhofer will take place in the department meeting room D4.2.008. He will present his research on the topic “Essays in Empirical Industrial Organization”.
Doctoral Committee: Klaus Gugler (WU), Philipp Schmidt-Dengler (University of Vienna), Alon Eizenberg (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
Defensio Dissertationis of Klara Kinnl

© WU TV
April 2025
On Wednesday, April 23 at 15:00, the Defensio Dissertationis of Klara Kinnl will take place in the department seminar room, D4.2.008.
Klara Kinnl will present her research on the topic „Essays in Public Economics“.
Doctoral Committee: Rupert Sausgruber (WU), Peter Brummund (University of Alabama), and Melis Kartal (WU)
4th Vienna Economics PhD Workshop
We are happy to announce the 4th Vienna Economics PhD workshop which will be held at WU on Friday April 4th from 09:30 - 17:30 (location: WU, Executive Academy , Room EA.0.024 Foyer)
The workshop is hosted by us in cooperation with the Vienna Graduate School of Economics and the Department of Economics and Business at CEU; to encourage exchange between the different PhD Economics students and get an insight into the different research projects.
For more information please have a look here
Study published by our PhD Candidate Lydia Dimitrakopoulou

Nov 2024 - Our PhD Candidate Lydia Dimitrakopoulou, along with co-authors Christos Genakos (University of Cambridge), Themistoklis Kampouris (DIW) and Stella Papadokonstantaki (WashU), has published a new study,"VAT Pass-Through and Competition: Evidence from the Greek Islands," in the International Journal of Industrial Organization (open access at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2024.103110).
This research examines how competition affects VAT pass-through in isolated oligopolistic markets as defined by the Greek islands. Using daily gasoline prices and a difference-in-differences approach, the study analyzes how changes in VAT rates are passed through to consumers in islands with different market structure. The authors find that pass-through increases with competition, going from 50% in monopoly to around 80% in more competitive markets, but remains incomplete.
The research also reveals a rapid rate of adjustment for VAT changes, as well as a positive relationship between competition and the rate of price adjustment. Additionally, products with more inelastic demand exhibit higher VAT pass-through rates.
For further insights, part of this research is also discussed in the article "Competition and Pass-Through: Lessons from the Greek Islands" on the CEPR VoxEU website: Competition and pass-through: Lessons from the Greek islands | CEPR