Axel Ockenfels

Ockenfels received his Diplom in economics from the University of Bonn in 1994, where he studied under Reinhard Selten. He earned his doctoral degree in economics from the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg in 1998, where his doctoral advisor was Joachim Weimann.

Renowned for his research on behavioral and design economics, Ockenfels is considered one of the most influential German economists, both in fundamental research and in practical market design. He publishes in leading journals in economics, but also in business administration, information systems, psychology, and sociology, as well as in application-oriented outlets. His "Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition" (co-authored with Gary E. Bolton) is one of the most cited papers in economics.[1] Ockenfels is a Member of the Berlin-Brandenburgische and of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, the Academic Advisory Board at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, and Contributing Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Ockenfels was awarded the 1.5 million Euro Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, Germany's highest research honor, by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in 2005.

• Behavioral economic engineering. In: Journal of Economic Psychology, Volume 33(3), (6/2012): 665–676 (with Gary E. Bolton).
• Bonus Payments and Reference Point Violations. In: Management Science, forthcoming (with Dirk Sliwka and Peter Werner).
• Engineering Trust – Reciprocity in the Production of Reputation Information. In: Management Science, Volume 59: 265–285 (with Gary E. Bolton und Ben Greiner).
• ERC – A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity and Competition. In: American Economic Review, Volume 90, (1/2000): 166-193 (with Gary E Bolton).
• Fairness, Reziprozität und Eigennutz – Ökonomische Theorie und experimentelle Evidenz. Dissertation, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-16-147205-5.
• How Effective are Electronic Reputation Mechanisms? An Experimental Investigation. In: Management Science, Volume 50(11), (2004): 1587-1602 (with Gary E. Bolton and Elena Katok).
• Last-Minute Bidding and the Rules for Ending Second-Price Auctions: Evidence from eBay and Amazon Auctions on the Internet. In: American Economic Review, Volume 92 (4/2002): 1093–1103 (with Alvin E. Roth).
• Managers and Students as Newsvendors. In: Management Science, Volume 58(12), (2012): 2225-2233 (with Gary E. Bolton and Ulrich Thonemann).
• Similarity increases altruistic punishment in humans. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 110, (2013): 19318–19323 (with Thomas Mussweiler).
• The Method of Agencies Coalition Formation in Experimental Games. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 109/50, (2012): 20358-20363 (with John F. Nash, Rosemarie Nagel and Reinhard Selten).

• Website at the University of Cologne