Armin Falk
University of Bonn
Professor of Economics
Armin Falk is Professor at the University of Bonn (Department of Economics) and Director of the Bonn Econ Lab. He is also Director of the newly founded Center for Economics and Neurosciences. Armin Falk is affiliated with several networks: He is Program Director at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy (CEPR), Fellow at the Center for Economic Studies (CESifo) and Research Professor at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). Falk's research generally aims at increasing the explanatory power of economics by providing it with a more realistic psychological and biological foundation. One of his interests concerns how "non-economic" aspects of human motivation, such as social norms, fairness and reciprocity affect labor markets and labor relations. He explores the "psychology of incentives", i.e., he investigates the interaction between psychological factors and economic incentives. Phenomena such as trust, social comparison and intrinsic motivation explain why explicit incentives may backfire and why incentive theory should take psychological effects into account. Falk also studies formation and consequences of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. He investigates prevalence, determinants, consequences and origins of risk, time, and social preferences. He also studies the interaction of personality (Big-5, locus of control etc.), IQ and preferences. This research is mostly based on large and representative samples using experimentally validated measures. More recently these methods are complemented with genetic and fMRI analyses as well as intervention studies.
Working Group
Additional Information
Email: armin.falk@uni-bonn.de
Homepage: http://www.cens.uni-bonn.de/team/board/armin-falk/armin-falk