Jean-Robert Tyran

IAS Q&A

When you arrived at the Institute you probably had a concrete idea or plan of what you would like to achieve during your stay. Were you able to pursue these plans? Did there emerge new, unforeseen directions?

A few days before traveling to Budapest, I was informed that my application for funding of a Horizon Europe project entitled “valuing democracy” was not approved. I had planned to work on that project during my stay at IAS CEU, but fortunately, I had other projects in the pipeline. I therefore changed my plans to work on a field experiment to investigate the causes of vote buying in India. It worked out brilliantly. My time at the IAS was very intense because Anand Murugesan (CEU / CEU DI) and I were still in the process of collecting data while I was in Budapest. I had many memorable zoom sessions with Anand who was in the field to discuss and monitor the ongoing data collection. Anand later also visited me several times at IAS in Budapest to discuss and analyze first results. These in-person meetings were very productive, and I was able to present some preliminary results at the Institute’s Wednesday Seminars.

More generally speaking, who or what influenced your work and research path the most?

Looking back, I was very fortunate to have met great minds in my formative years. The senior scholars were generous with their time and patient with my naivety. They taught me the dos and don’ts of the profession as well as the skills and techniques to investigate exciting questions. Above all, they were admirable role models. While I was an undergraduate student at the University of Zurich, the most important people shaping my thinking were Peter Zweifel (in environmental economics), Bruno S. Frey (in political economy) and Ernst Fehr who was a brilliant supervisor for my PhD thesis. I am also grateful to the University of St. Gallen who provided me as a young assistant professor with much freedom and independence to pursue my own - at the time rather unconventional - research agenda. Later in my career, I had to privilege to teach, train and collaborate with many talented students and junior colleagues. My teachers enabled me to pass the torch to the next generation.

To which debates or schools of thought do you see your research contributing?

Economics has always fascinated me because it can be applied to a broad range of important questions. I have worked on such diverse topics as environmental protection, discrimination in the labor market, industrial organization, and taxation and redistribution. At the University of Copenhagen, I was hired as professor of „behavioral and experimental economics“. There, I was able to set up an experimental laboratory, introduced hundreds of undergraduate students to the field through participation in didactic experiments, and I was able to pioneer the use of online experimentation with a large grant from the Carlsberg foundation. I was later called to the University of Vienna as professor of Public Economics. As a consequence, my teaching and research more strongly focused to the intersection of politics and the economy which I find most rewarding.

How do you see your field of research today, how is it evolving?

Economics had a strong theoretical orientation when I was a student, but it has become much more empirical and diverse over time. When I started doing research on behavioral and experimental economics more than 25 years ago, the field was at the fringes of the discipline. It has gained in reputation, respect and relevance since. Today, it is mainstream. The field has changed dramatically in the process. It has moved from testing theoretical models to much more applied issues.

How is life after IAS CEU Budapest (if we may ask)?

I was awarded a long sabbatical by the University of Vienna to enable me to find my way back into state-of-the-art research after several years of service in university leadership. I have served as Dean of a faculty with more than 7000 students and as Vice-rector of research for the biggest University in the German-speaking area. I found the service in both of these positions most rewarding, but I am now also excited to get back to doing my own research. I had the privilege to spend part of my sabbatical at IAS CEU Budapest and I plan to use the rest of my sabbatical to learn more, network, and do research. The next stations of my journey are various institutions in England (including King’s College in London), Japan (in particular Keio University in Tokyo), the Einaudi Institute of Economics and Finance in Rome, and Sciences Po in Paris.

If there were one book or film you could recommend to the reader, what would be that and why?

I just can’t limit myself to a single book. Let me instead name four easy-reading books that reflect the breadth of my interests: “Misbehaving” by Richard Thaler recounts the success story of behavioral economics and highlights its numerous applications in an entertaining and instructive way. “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion” by Johnathan Haidt is a fascinating account of how moral psychology helps to explain the rising political polarization and animosity in US society. “Capitalism, alone” provides a data-rich narrative of the causes and consequences of inequality, and a provocative perspective on the future of (what he calls) capitalism. “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson brilliantly discusses the crucial role of institutions for understanding economics.