We are pleased to announce the Defensio Dissertationis of Lydia Dimitrakopoulou, which will take place on Thursday, June 18, at 15:30 in the Department Meeting Room D4.2.008.
She will present her research on the topic of “Essays in Competition Policy Issues.”
Doctoral Committee: Klaus Gugler (WU), Florian Szücs (WU) and Christine Zulehner (University of Vienna)
5th Vienna Economics PhD Workshop
May 2026
We are happy to announce the 5th Vienna Economics PhD workshop which will be heldon May 5th.
The Vienna Graduate School of Economics (VGSE) and the Oskar Morgenstern Doctoral School (OMDS) at the University of Vienna, in collaboration with the Department of Economics and Business at Central European University (CEU) and the Department of Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), will host the 5th Vienna Economics PhD Workshop on May 5, 2026.
The workshop provides a forum for PhD Economics students to present ongoing research and to engage in discussion with faculty members across a broad range of topics in economics. All PhD students and faculty members are encouraged to attend, with a particular invitation to principal investigators and members of supervisory committees.
Congratulations to our PhD Candidate Mara Kritzinger for having been awarded the Dissertation Fellowship of the Austrian Economic Association (NOeG)! The NOeG annually awards Fellowships for high-quality economic research as part of a dissertation.
Mara Kritzinger received the fellowship for her project"Estimating the Heterogeneous GDP Effects of the Euro Adoption Across Different Regions and Macroeconomic Regimes: A Bayesian Structural Time Series Approach" . Her project aims to estimate the causal impact of the euro adoption on regional (NUTS2) GDP per capita across the first twelve euro area member states under different macroeconomic episodes, because little is known about how euro adoption has shaped regional economic trajectories, especially in the presence of major macroeconomic regime shifts. She implements a Bayesian structural time series model, which offers a flexible and robust framework for causal inference in time series data. By providing causal evidence on the euro’s regional GDP effects across different macroeconomic regimes, the project will contribute to both academic debates and policy decisions about the future of the euro area.
New study published: "Downstream impacts of mines on agriculture in Africa"
November 2025
Our WU PhD candidate Maximilian Heinze and recent graduates Lukas Vashold and Nikolas Kuschnig (Monash University), along with Gustav Pirich (University of Zürich), have published a new study “Downstream impacts of mines on agriculture in Africa” in the Journal of Development Economics (open access at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103671).
The paper provides causal evidence of how water pollution from mining operations affects vegetation and agricultural productivity across Africa. Using a quasi-experimental research design based on river networks, the authors compare satellite-derived vegetation indices in upstream and downstream areas relative to mine locations. The analysis finds that mining significantly reduces peak vegetation by 1.3–1.5%, with particularly severe effects found in fertile regions and areas dominated by gold mining, and affects roughly 74,000 km² of croplands across the continent. These reductions correspond to estimated annual cereal losses of 91,000–205,000 tons, equivalent to 5.4% to 12.1% of the World Food Programme’s food aid distributed in Africa in 2023.
We are very happy to welcome five new students to our PhD.
Daniel Enderle, Simay Kücükkolbasi, Ines Kusmenko (back row, left to right) and Gabriel Konecny and Mikhail Martianov (sitting, left to right) are joining us from this year onwards.
Welcome to our department and the PhD Label Economics!
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)
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
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).
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.
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.
September 2024 - We are very happy to welcome four new PHD candidates: Sannah Tijani, Maximilian Heinze, Nicolas Göller and Jonathan Fitter (pictured left to right) are joining us from this year onwards.
Welcome to our department and the PhD Label Economics!
July 2024 On Tuesday, July 9 at 17:00, the Defensio Dissertationis of Nikolas Kuschnig will take place in the department seminar room, D4.2.008.
Nikolas Kuschnig will present his research on the topic „Essays on Econometric Methods for Issues in Environmental Economics“.
Doctoral Committee: Jesus Crespo Cuaresma (WU), Bryan Graham (UC Berkeley), Angelo Mele (JH Carey Business School)
Defensio Dissertationis of Melanie Gräser
July 2024 Our PhD Candidate Melanie Gräser will present her research on the topic of „Essays in Development Economics“ on Friday, July 5th, 15:00.
The presentation will take place in the seminar room, D4.2.008.
Doctoral Comittee: Ingrid Kubin (WU), Joachim Becker (WU), Peter Brummund (University of Alabama)
Philipp Poyntner won the Hanns Abele Prize!
May 2024 - Congratulations to Philipp Poyntner, for being the winner ofthe Hanns Abele Prize 2024! The prize, sponsored by the Abele family, for the best dissertation on the topic "scientific foundation of economic policy" was awarded toPhilipp Poyntner, PhD for his thesis "Essays on monetary policy".
Defensio Dissertationis of Severin Rapp
May 2024 - We are happy to announce that our PhD Candidate Severin Rapp will present his research on the topic of "Perspectives on the distribution of wealth - concepts, data and perceptions" on Wednesday, May 29th, 2024 at 10:30. The presentation will take place in the seminar room, D4.1.001.
Doctoral Comittee: Wilfried Altzinger (WU); Jesus Crespo-Cuaresma (WU); Maximilian Kasy (University of Oxford).
New article by our PhD Candidate Lukas Vashold
April 2024: PhD candidate Lukas Vashold together with Prof. Jesús Crespo Cuaresma published the article"A unified modelling framework for projecting sectoral greenhouse gas emissions" in Communications Earth & Environment (Open Access via https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01288-9). In the paper, the authors use a coherent modelling framework to project greenhouse gas emissions for 173 countries and five main sectors up until 2050 under a business-as-usual scenario.
These projections add to the toolkit available to policy-makers and researcher confronting the challenge posed by climate change, as is exemplified by comparisons with forecasts of countries submitted as part of their climate pledges as well as with trajectories derived from models intensely used in the climate science community.
Part of the research is featured on the World Emissions Clock, an online tool created in cooperation with the World Data Lab in order to visualize the data in an accessible manner and provide it to the broader public. Read the related WU press release here as well as a brief blog at Springer Nature Behind the Paper here.
Defensio Dissertationis of Elisabeth Wurm
April 2024 - We are happy to announce that our PhD Candidate Elisabeth Wurm will present her research on the topic of "Essays in Labor Economics” on Friday, April 19, 2024 at 10:00. The presentation will take place in the department seminar room D4.2.008.
March 2024 - Our PhD Candidate Oscar Fernandez will present his research on the topic of "Essays in Quantitative Macroeconomics and Green Finance" on Friday, March 15th, 2024 at 11:00. The presentation will take place in the department seminar room, D4.2.008.
Doctoral Comittee: Jesus Crespo Cuaresma (WU), Katrin Rabitsch (WU), Martin Feldkircher (Vienna School of International Studies).
Nov. 2023 - Our PhD Candidate Anna Schwarz will present her research on the topic of "Essays in Public Economics" on Friday, December 15th, 2023 at 09:00. The presentation will take place in the department seminar room, D4.2.008.
Nov. 2023 - Our PhD Candidate Pia Heckl will present her research on the topic „Essays on Gender in the Labor Market" on Friday, November 24th, 2023 at 11:00. The presentation will take place in the department seminar room, D4.2.008.
Doctoral Comittee:Ingrid Kubin (WU), Martin Halla (WU), Helmut Rainer (LMU&Ifo).
Sept. 2023: Four new PhD students joined us in the academic year 23/24.
We are happy to welcome Raphael Gottweis, Mara Kritzinger, Matthias Hochholzer and Michael Keinprecht (pictured left to right) to our PhD Economics Label.
Sept. 2023 - Our PhD Candidate Philipp Poyntner will present his research on the topic „Essays on monetary policy” on Monday, September 18, 2023 at 2:30pm. The presentation will take place in the department seminar room, D4.2.008.
Doctoral Comittee: Harald Badinger (WU), Harald Oberhofer (WU), Andrea Weber (CEU).
June 2023:
Our PhD candidatesNikolas Kuschnig and Lukas Vashold co-authored the article "Eroding resilience of deforestation interventions – evidence from Brazil’s lost decade" in Environmental Research Letters (Open Access via doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdfe7) with colleagues at the University of Oxford.
The paper assesses the erosion of deforestation interventions in Brazil, and how this lack of resilience impacts deforestation. Employing econometric methods and newly compiled data on environmental fines, they show that the enforcement of environmental policy has become ineffective in recent years. The impacts of this erosion are considerable – a hypothetical policy that doubles fines in 2020 (to 3,792) would lose out on 251,781 ha of prevented forest loss due to the drop in enforcement efficacy.
The authors conclude that, going forward, the resilience of policies should be considered for sustainable forest protection. Future efforts should be devoted to strengthening institutions, spreading responsibilities, and redistributing the common value of the Amazon via incentive-based systems – committing locals to its protection.
Forests and forest loss around São Félix do Xingu and the BR-163 highway
PhD candidate Philipp Poyntner co-authored the article "Quantitative Easing and Wealth Inequality: The asset price channel", which was recently published in the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics (Open Acces via https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/obes.12543). In the paper, the authors assess the impact of the ECB's quantitative easing (QE) on the distribution of household wealth in the euro area.
Our PhD Candidates Klara Kinnl and Ulrich Wohak were invited by the FEMM Committee of the European Parliament to present their research “Free the Period? Evaluating Tampon Tax Reforms using Transaction Based Scanner Data” at a Workshop on Menstrual Poverty.
The World Data Lab (WDL) announced the launch of the World Emissions Clock (WEC) on the margins of the UN Climate Conference (COP27) in Egypt on November 18th 2022. PhD candidate Lukas Vashold has played a leading role in the development of the statistical model and the data work behind the WEC.
In the scientific paper underlying parts of the WEC, Lukas Vashold and co-author Univ.Prof. Jesús Crespo Cuaresma develop a novel statistical methodology to project sectorally disaggregated greenhouse gas emissions, building on Bayesian econometric methods. Using this unified modelling framework, they derive business-as-usual projections of GHG emissions up to the year 2050 for most countries of the world and five sectors: energy production, transportation, industry, buildings, and agriculture. The probabilistic nature of their approach allows for straightforward uncertainty quantification, while also ensuring that the projections are coherent with medium and long-term forecasts of socioeconomic variables, as well as with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. The derived projections show that global GHG emissions are set to increase strongly in the next decades under business-as-usual, but also highlight a number of important differences across countries and sectors. The paper addresses the lack of comprehensive, sectorally disaggregated projections for GHG emissions and equips policy-makers with important information for the identification of sectors within countries critical for reducing future emissions.
Together with inputs from the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, the WEC provides an informative and user-friendly visualization platform that allows the user to understand the progress and possible challenges related to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under different hypothetical scenarios. It was developed in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the Patrick McGovern Foundation, and the University of Oxford.
Welcome to our new PhD Students! Three new PhD students joined us in the academic year 22/23. We are happy to welcome Lucas Konrad, Anne Valder and Lukas Pirnbacher (pictured left to right) to our PhD Economics Program.
July 2022:
PhD student Francesco Scarazzato together with co-authors Nicolas Koch, Nolan Ritter and Alexander Rohlf published a new paper titled "When is the electric vehicle market self-sustaining? Evidence from Norway"
This paper investigates whether the world’s most mature electric vehicle (EV) market in Norway has overcome critical mass constraints and can achieve sustainable long-term equilibria without subsidies. The authors estimate a structural model that allows for multiple equilibria emerging from the interdependence between EV demand and charging station supply. They first estimate the resulting indirect network effects using an instrumental variable approach. Then, they simulate long-term market outcomes for each of the 422 Norwegian municipalities. They find that almost 20% of all municipalities faced critical mass constraints in the earliest stage of the market. Half of them are effectively trapped in a zero-adoption equilibrium. However, in the maturing market, all municipalities have passed critical mass. Overall, about 60% of the Norwegian population now lives in municipalities with a high-adoption equilibrium, even if subsidies were removed. This suggests that critical mass constraints do no longer justify the provision of subsidies
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