Behavioral economist Ernst Fehr: Revolution of the economy through experiments!

Behavioral economist Ernst Fehr: Revolution of the economy through experiments!

Wien, Österreich - Ernst Fehr, a leading behavioral economist and professor at the University of Zurich, gave a lecture on May 16, 2025 at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in Vienna. Under the title "The empirical and behavioral revolution in economics", Fehr addressed the fundamental changes within the discipline caused by empirical research and experiments. In his speech, Fehr found that the last 50 years have been shaped by revolutionary development, which was made possible by powerful computers and modern empirical methods. This advances allow researchers to test and understand causal relationships precisely.

Fehr, who was born in Hard on June 21, 1956, has earned a reputation as one of the most important research personalities in the field of behavioral economics. Among other things, he deals with the complexity of products and their influence on consumer decisions. A vivid example from his lecture was a US hotel where guests have to pay extra for bed making. This practice increases not only the complexity, but also the costs for customers, which can be interpreted as a strategic measure of companies to increase the “search costs”.

entrepreneurial strategies and experiments

Fehr criticized the tactics of some companies that specifically increase search costs for customers to make switching to other providers difficult. He also pointed out that companies like Google and Amazon carry out experiments every day to influence customer behavior. This raises questions about the ethical implications of such strategies.

His work also extends to the examination of individual preferences, social norms and group cultures. Fehr also analyzes the causal effects of trust and social norms on economic behavior. One of his latest studies dealt with the question of whether business cultures favor excessive risk to risk, which contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.

The role of trust and institutions

In his research results, Fehr shows that individuals tend to act more in booming, which increases the economic highlights. In contrast, they become more careful in times of crisis, which leads to a falling price development of financial investments. He found that trust or institutional rules alone are not sufficient to ensure efficient economic interactions. Rather, both trust and robust institutional structures are necessary.

Fehr is also a co -founder of "Fehradvice", where he makes empirical knowledge accessible to companies. However, he warns that in science, faith often comes to the fore instead of empirical evidence. This is a dangerous tendency to fight. Against the background of his successes and insights, Fehr does not think of a possible Nobel Prize and would like to distance himself from the expectations of the outside world.

The importance of Fehr's work becomes clear not only in its many awards, but also in its active role within the scientific community, which publishes in well -known specialist journals such as the "American Economic Review" and the "Journal of Political Economy". His findings contribute significantly to the further development of economics and to our understanding of human behavior in economic contexts.