(Summer Term 2023)
Prof. Dr. K.J. Bernhard Neumärker
SoCoLab seminar, winner of a University Teaching Award 2012 and the Economics Student Council Award 2021, 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, and a concluding session for the team experiments. In the first sessions (Part I), the theoretical foundations and political problems are laid, and after the introduction to experiment settings (Part II) follow the presentations and critical discussion on design and conduct of team experiments (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 tackled in the seminar. The experiment design formalities and more specific information on the content will be provided to all participants.
We are happy to welcome this semester’s special guest Ugo Colombino for the last seminar session. He is the author of the paper underlying the experimental topics.
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”:
M.Sc. Economics:
► Internal Elective for the profile „Economics and Politics“
From SS2023: External Elective for „Finance“ and „Information Systems and Network Economics“
M.Sc. VWL:
► Constitutional Economics and Competition Policy
► Empirical Economics
► Public Sector Economics and International Taxation
M.Sc. BWL:
► Public Sector Economics
► Volkswirtschaftslehre
Current Topics and Groups:
Topic 1: Universal versus Categorial Social Policies
Topic Supervisors: Gudrun Kaufmann, Jette Weinel, Marcel Franke
Topic 2: Basic Income versus (Wage) Subsidy versus Wage Floor/Minimum Wage
Topic Supervisors: Tobias Jäger, Wiebke Kruse
Topic 3: Basic Income versus Minimum Income Guarantee
Topic Supervisors: Bianca Blum, Dominik Schröder
Topic 4: Pure versus Mixed Systems of Income Support: Pure UBI vs pure MIG vs WS vs UBI&WS vs MIG&WS
Topic Supervisors: Simon März, Alexandra Pilyus, Enno Schmidt
Topic 5: Buchanan’s Demogrant, New Ordoliberalism, and the Implication on UBI
Topic Supervisors: Niharika Jaokar, Lida Kuang, Clem Davies
Time Schedule:
For application information, please see the „Announcement“ below.
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):