Ernst Fehr
AustriaBiography of Ernst Fehr
Ernst Fehr, an Austrian economist, is the Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research encompasses the areas of human cooperation and sociality, particularly justice, reciprocity, and bounded rationality.
Ernst Fehr was born on June 21, 1956, in the city of Hard, Vorarlberg, Austria. He is well-known for his significant contributions to the emerging field of neuroeconomics, as well as behavioral finance and experimental economics. According to the business newspaper "Handelsblatt," Fehr is the second most influential German-speaking economist.
In 2008, he was awarded the oldest and most prestigious scientific prize in Switzerland, the "Marcel-Benoist-Preis." Fehr was also mentioned as a potential recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009, although he ultimately did not receive it.
In 2002, Fehr co-authored the book "Why Social Preferences Matter – The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives" with Urs Fischbacher. In the book's abstract, Fehr asserts that economists cannot fully understand fundamental economic questions without considering social preferences. He argues that ignoring social preferences makes it impossible to comprehend the influence of competition on the market, the laws regulating cooperation and collective actions, the efficiency and determinants of material incentives, the mechanisms of property rights, and the important force in shaping social norms.
Fehr believes that economics can be called the "dismal science" because it tends to focus on the worst aspects of human motives. His assertion that humans typically act with consideration for the interests of others sharply contrasts with the widely-held belief that consumer tastes are heterogeneous. He opposes the "selfishness hypothesis" because of the abundant evidence contradicting it and argues that dismissing alternative behavioral models is akin to ignoring a central aspect of market activity.
From 1982 to 1994, Fehr taught at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), and in 1994, he moved to the University of Zurich. In 1999, he was awarded the Gossen Prize, and a year later, he received the Hicks-Tinbergen Medal. From 2003 to 2005, Fehr served as the president of the European Economic Association (ESA).
