18 May 2018. The rational, self-interest-oriented homo œconomicus is an important figure of thought in the analysis of economic processes. In this year’s Walter Adolf Jöhr Lecture, Prof. Dr. Simon Gächter will review the findings from 30 years of behaviour science research into the empirical evaluation of the homo œconomicus assumption. Together with the guests, he will discuss the insights that can deduced from this for economic policy.

Simon Gächter
Prof. Dr. Simon Gächter studied economics and philosophy in Vienna. He is Professor of the Psychology of Economic Decision Making at the School of Economics (Centre for Economic Decision Research and Experimental Economics) of the University of Nottingham in the UK. From 2000 to 2005, he was Professor of Applied Microeconomics at the University of St.Gallen.

Simon Gächter obtained his Doctor’s degree with distinction at the University of Vienna. His habilitation in economics followed at the University of Zurich. In 2004, he was awarded the Latsis Prize of the Swiss National Science Foundation, in 2005 also the Gossen Prize of the Verein für Socialpolitik.

Professor Simon Gächter has been an elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 2009. From 2012 to 2017, he was the recipient of an Advanced Investigator Grant from the European Research Council for the project entitled “Putting Strong Reciprocity into Context: The Roles of Incentives, Social Norms, and Culture for Voluntary Cooperation”.

In his research, Simon Gächter primarily deals with issues which are located at the intersection of economics and psychology. His main interest is focused on the understanding of voluntary cooperation: why, and in what conditions, are people prepared to put the common benefit above their self-interest? In methodological terms, his research has an interdisciplinary orientation and takes up approaches of experimental economics. His work consists of numerous articles in globally leading academic journals such as Nature, Science and the American Economic Review.

Picture: Fotolia/Andrey Kuzmin