(Summer Term 2021)
Attention: Due to the Corona Pandemic, ALL courses and seminar of our chair take place digitally and predominantly asynchronously in the summer semester.
Distance Teaching:
We will provide you our slides as usual on this website. See the schedule below for more information.
Prof. Dr. K.J. Bernhard Neumärker
SoCoLab seminar, winner of a University teaching award 2012, deviates from a usual seminar setting. The students after reading the necessary papers and finish the required assignments will be welcomed during class to participate and discuss the elements of the theories and their ideas with Prof. Neumärker and his co-workers. The seminar consists of an introduction, 2 blocked meetings, a day of experiments with the participants, a session for the team experiments, and a concluding session. In the first sessions (Part I), the theoretical foundations are laid, and after the experiment sessions (Part II) follows one session with critical discussion (Part III). The participation in all the classes is obligatory in order to achieve maximum participation and understanding of the subjects. After the classes and the experiments for seminar participants are over, teams are given a sufficient amount of time to develop an experiment on the topic. In the team experiments, the participants are expected to critically reflect on one of the issues/aspects tackled in the seminar. The experiment design formalities and more specific information on the content will be provided to all participants.
The overall grade is the weighted as a sum of all three elements of the seminar with the following weights: Team Experiment and Paper/Report on a Basic Income Experiment: 60%, Assignments: 20%, Experiment presentation: 20%. The teams will be built, at the latest, after the “Experimental Sessions for Participants”.
Students will receive 6 ECTS credit points upon successful completion of the seminar. The Seminar can be recognized as “Topics in the Economics of Social Justice” for students enrolled in the “M.Sc. Economics” or “M.Sc. VWL” program. Students from outside economics can enroll if the course is accepted by their program.
Current Topics and Groups:
Topic 1: Universal versus Categorial Social Policies
Topic Supervisors: Jonas Rassau, Franziska Leopold
Topic 2: Basic Income versus (Wage) Subsidy versus Wage Floor/Minimum Wage
Topic Supervisors: Bianca Blum, Tobias Jäger
Topic 3: Basic Income versus Minimum Income Guarantee
Topic Supervisors: Dominik Schröder, Julian Hübner, Valentin Seehausen
Topic 4: Pure versus Mixed Systems of Income Support: Pure UBI vs pure MIG vs WS vs UBI&WS vs MIG&WS
Topic Supervisors: Enno Schmidt, Alexandra Pilyus, Leonie Schraven
Topic 5: Contractarian Choice of the Social Welfare Function for the Constitutional Determination of Social Policy Rules
Topic Supervisors: Marcel Franke, Gudrun Kaufmann
Time Schedule:
Special Field:
Students will receive 6 ECTS upon successful completion of the seminar. The Seminar can be recognized as “Topics in the Economics of Social Justice” for students enrolled in the “M.Sc. Economics” or “M.Sc. VWL” program. Students from “M.Sc. BWL” or from outside economics can enroll if the course is accepted by their program.
The registration period begins on 02. March 2021. To make a reservation for a seminar slot please join the Ilias course “Seminar „Basic Income and Social Justice“ SS 2021” by following this link, no password required:
https://ilias.uni-freiburg.de/goto.php?target=crs_2031945_rcodeamj6V7hWsf&client_id=unifreiburg
The seminar registration is on a first come first serve basis. If the course is full you may join the waiting list. On this list you will automatically join the course as soon as a slot becomes available for you. If you want to reject your reservation, please make sure to leave the Ilias course, as your slot should be available for others.
The official registration takes place after the introductory session, date 19.04.2021. The latest date for reservations is the introductory session.
For further questions feel free to send a mail to “marcel.franke (at) vwl.uni-freiburg.de”.
The seminar takes place in English language.
Documents regarding the course (for literature see Ilias):