VCEE Seminar in Experimental Economics

MA course (next offered in Spring 2026, 040176-1 SE )

All materials for this course are accessible through Moodle.

Experiments are used to investigate a broad range of questions in economics. The Vienna Center for Experimental Economics (VCEE) is a core facility of the University of Vienna. The VCEE provides infrastructure and support for researchers interested in using experiments in economic research and serves as a forum to discuss and exchange ideas related to experimental economics.

The purpose of the VCEE seminar is to educate students to become critical consumers of research in behavioral and experimental economics, to introduce students to key elements of the process from manuscript to journal publication, and to inspire students for their own research projects. To this end, students discuss ongoing research in experimental economics with a small group of advanced students, get first-hand experience of participating in a research seminar, engage in scholarly discourse with invited speakers, and articulate their views on ongoing research by writing a referee report.

Method and organization of the course: The seminar is organized around six VCEE research seminar presentations by invited speakers. These seminars are open to the scientific community, i.e., are attended by researchers at U Vienna and at other institutions (e.g., WU Vienna, CEU). 

Each invited speaker submits an unpublished manuscript (“working paper”) at least three weeks before it is presented in the VCEE research seminar. Students read the paper to be presented at the VCEE research seminar and discuss the paper in class usually one week before the VCEE research seminar. Students submit questions to the speakers the day after the preparatory class such that the speakers can respond to them during the seminar.

The VCEE research seminar proceeds as follows: Speakers give a short presentation of max 30 minutes (only to be interrupted by requests for clarification). The speaker then addresses some of the questions raised by the students, and students are welcome to react to the responses of the speaker (5-15 minutes). The remaining time (about 45 minutes) is devoted to questions from the audience. We invite open discussion, and participants are welcome to raise broader, more general issues.

The (preliminary) lineup of speakers can also​ be found here https://vcee.univie.ac.at/seminars-events/vcee-seminars/