Dear Bernard, Thanks for All Your Help

Dear Bernard, Thanks for All Your Help

4.1. Presentation of the Departement

The Institute of Economics at the University of Copenhagen is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Teaching and research in economic at the University of Copenhagen began in 1848, but the Institute in its present form, was founded in 1958. Its activities are financially supported through government funding to University and increasingly also through external grants and funding. The department was recently, as part of an evaluation of all economics departments in Denmark, evaluated by an international expert committee, headed by Professor Seppo Honkapohja. The committee conclued «the department of Economics is first rate by international standard». The Institute hosts research centres within micro-econometrics (CAM), industrial economics (CIE), economic policy (EPRU), and economic theory. The centres contribute to an active guest and workshop programme. Regular seminar-series, workshops and lectures by distinguished researchers are held at the Institute. There are 45 permanent faculty members whose interests cover most fields of economics. There are also members working in the fields of mathematics, statistics and demography. The main aims of the Institute are: to conduct research at a high international standard; to provide research-based teaching and supervision at Undergraduate and Graduate levels and to be actively engaged in the Danish and international economic policy debate. To stimulate high quality research and teaching, the Institute has an ambitious guest programme; encourages national and international collaboration; operates an active seminar, workshop and conference programme; promotes the establishment of externally funded research centres; and maintains a high level of ongoing investments in IT equipment. The Department can offer the rest of the network a strong commitment to research and training of young researchers. All graduate teaching and semainars in the Institute are conducted in English. The research environment for young researchers in the Institute is very congenial. We currently have 35 Ph.D. students in the Institute and we have 14 post-docs (allmost all from outside Denmark) in the last five years. By entering the network the Institute aims to maintain and strengthen its international connections and profile.

The Institute of Economics is the base together with department of economics, University of Aarhus for the Danish Graduate Programme in Economics (DGPE). The programis funded by the Danish Research Training Council (Forskeruddannelsesr‘det, FUR) for the period 2002-2005. The DGPE takes the form of a Research Network for graduate students in economics in Denmark

Individual members

Birgit Grodal, who is the coordinator of the Danish group, has given contributions to several areas of economic theory. Her current research interests includeGeneral equilibrium theory with firms and incomplete markets, General equilibrium theory with imperfect competition, general equilibrium with clubs, new theories of the firm based on general equilibrium theory and group formation. Jens Leth Hougaard’sresearch interests include applied microeconomics, Internet economics, efficiency analysis, cooperative game theory and bargaining theory. Current research projects relates to mechanism design, markets with externalities and public goods as well as communication and information in networks. Hans Keiding has given many contributions to Game Theory, Social Choice, and General Equilibrium Theory. His current research interests include voting in committees, choice under uncertainty, international trade with uncertainty, and health insurance schemes.Klaus Reiner Schenk-Hoppé's research interests are currently in evolutionary finance, stochastic growth theory, and random dynamical systems theory. Evolutionary finance pursues the goal to achieve a better understanding of the dynamics of financial markets. It reconciles behavioural finance approaches, which attempt to model the psychology of the market, and equilibrium effects such as the wealth dynamics and price fluctuations. The modelling framework is provided by random dynamical systems theory. The analysis employs both analytical and numerical methods. Christian Schultzhas given contributions to Political Economy, Industrial Organization, and Macroeconomics; His current research interests include Political Economy and asymmetric information, normative foundations of constitutional design, incomplete contract theory and privatisations, and Market transparency and collusive behaviour. Peter Norman Sorensen has published work on herd behaviour in investment decisions, in economic forecasting, and in committee decision-making. He is currently working on the strategic use of information in a particularly simple financial market setting, the market for bets on racehorses. Mich Tvedehas visited and taught at University of Geneva, University of Pennsylvania and HEC School of Management. He has published in Journal of Economic Theory, Economic Theory, and International Economic Review. His current research interests include: general equilibrium; growth and general equilibrium; financial markets and Internet economics.Karl Vind has contributed to many areas of mathematical economics, including decisions under uncertainty and risk. On this subject he has recently published the book: Karl Vind, with contributions of Birgit Grodal, Independence Additivity Uncertainty, Springer, 2003. Moreover Karl Vind has contributed to general equilibrium theory in general. His current research interests include following up on the themes of the book and to investigate what the results in general equilibrium theory can say about institutions.Hans Jørgen Whitta-Jacobsen has given contributions to general equilibrium models of imperfect competition and endogenous fluctuations, game theory, decision theory, and labour market theory. His current research interests include learning processes, evolution of conventions under incomplete information, evolutionary game theory, and non-additive representations of preferences over uncertain outcomes.

The group in Copenhagen consists of (all from Institute of Economics)

Professor Birgit Grodal (Coordinator) Homepage

Associate Professor Jens Leth Hougaard :Homepage

Professor Hans Keiding. Homepage:

Associate Professor Klaus Reiner Schenk-Hoppé Homepage

Professor Christian Schultz Homepage:

Associate Professor Peter Norman Sørensen: Homepage

Associate Professor Mich Tvede Homepage:

Professor Emeritus Karl Vind: Homepage:

Professor Hans Jørgen Whitta-Jacobsen. Homepage

The two papers, which should be mentioned from Copenhagen,are:

Birgit Grodal, Clubs and the Market, Econometrica, Vol. 67, pp.1185-1219, September 1999. (With B. Ellickson, S. Scotchmer, and W. R. Zame.)

Peter Norman Sørensen, Pathological Outcomes of Observational Learning, Econometrica,volume 68(2), 371-398, March 2000.(With Lones Smith )

Copenhagen: Cooperation between the participants

Existing co-operations

  • Klaus R. Schenk-Hoppé (Copenhagen) and Ana B. Ania (Vienna) “Evolutionary portfolio choice”
  • Peter Soerensen (Copenhagen) and Gerhard Orosel (Vienna) “Rational Herding”
  • Egbert Dierker (Vienna) and Birgit Grodal (Copenhagen) “Incomplete Markets”, “Imperfect Competition”
  • Birgit Grodal (Copenhagen) and Salvador Barbera (Barcelona) “Preferences for flexibility”
  • Hans Jørgen Whitta-Jacobsen (Copenhagen) and Alan Chateauneuf (Paris 1) “Non expected utility”
  • Birgit Grodal (Copenhagen), Karl Vind (Copenhagen), Jean-Francois Mertens (Core), and Peter Wakker (Maastricht) “Additive Representations of preferences”
  • Mich Tvede (Copenhagen) and Hervé Cres (Paris 1) “Majority Voting”
  • Hans Keiding, (Copenhagen) and Volker Böhm (Bielefeld) “International Trade”

Joint papers

  • Alós-Ferrer, C., A.B. Ania, and K.R. Schenk-Hoppé, (2000) “An Evolutionary Model of Bertrand Oligopoly”, Games and Economic Behavior, 33, 1-19.
  • Kaas, L, and V. Böhm, “Differential Savings, Factor Shares, and Endogenous Growth Cycles”, (2000) Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control, 24, 965-80.
  • Dierker, E., and B. Grodal, (1996) “Profit maximization mitigates competition”, Economic Theory,7, 139-60.
  • Dierker, E., and B. Grodal, (1998) “Modelling Policy issues in a world of imperfect competition”, Scandinavian Journal of Economics,100, 153-79.
  • Dierker, E., and B. Grodal, (1999) “The price normalization problem in imperfect competition and the objective of the firm”, Economic Theory,14, 257-84.
  • Dierker, E., H. Dierker, and B. Grodal, (2001) “Objectives of an imperfectly competitive firm: A surplus approach”, Economics Essays, A Festschrift for Werner Hildenbrand, G. Debreu et al. (eds.), Springer, Berlin, 59-81.
  • Dierker, E., H. Dierker, and B. Grodal, (2002) “Nonexistence of constrained efficient equilibria when markets are incomplete”, Econometrica,70, 1245-51.
  • Cres, Herve and Tvede, Mich (2001) “Ordering Pareto-Optima through Majority Voting”, Mathematical Social Sciences 41(3), 295-325
  • Cres,Herve, Ghiglino, Christian, and Tvede, Mich , (1997) “Externalities, Internalization and Fluctuations” International Economic Review, 38(2), 465-77

Past networks, organization of conferences

NOT FORGET! QED Meeting and European General equilibrium Workshop.

Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen, has organized several workshops where there have been participants from the other groups in the consortium.

We participate in BIGSEM, University of Bielefeld

Yearly meeting of the QED partners. Presentations of students and professors. Through the presentation of their work at these meetings, students can exploit the advantages of the network in order to improve their research.

Weekly seminars

  • Economic Theory Seminar
  • Industrial Economics seminar
  • Applied Microeconometrics Seminar
  • Pizza Seminar, Internal seminar where doctoral students present their work

Research Training;

We are a Marie Curie Site

Institute of Economics, together with University of Aarhus, offers a number of graduate courses taught by International researchers. The content is changing according to the interests of the Ph.D. students.

Main focus

The Copenhagen team counts with sound expertise in various areas of economic theory. The essential areas include choice under uncertainty and risk, general equilibrium with incomplete markets, general equilibrium with group formation, information economics, imperfect competition, game theory, social choice, and the evolutionary theory of financial markets.

Working Paper Series

Our research output circulates in the form of working papers, before being published in international journals. Institute of Economics has several discussion paper series. The group in Copenhagen mostly publishes in Discussion Papers from Institute of Economics, a series in EconPapers, and in Center for Industrial Economics Discussion papers.

Editorial activities

H. Keiding is Associate editor of Journal of Mathematical Economics and of Social Choice and Welfare.

Production of PhD.

Members of the group have been supervisors for PhD students, who are now having positions at universities and research institutions.

The Copenhagen Group and the 5 themes:

1. Market imperfections (Grodal, Schultz, Tvede, Whitta-Jacobsen)

2. Financial markets (Klaus Reiner Schenk-Hoppé)

3. Markets, Strategy and Information (Sørensen, Keiding)

4. Social interactions and strategic coordination (Hougaard)

5. Decision under risk and uncertainty (Vind, Whitta-Jacobsen)

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