Das Gebäude des Walter Eucken Instituts von außen

03.08.2026 Discussion paper: “Open House? Not for Everyone: Discrimination patterns in rental markets”

The paper presents results from a correspondence study with 590 landlords across Austria and Germany. With this study, we examine ethnic and religious discrimination in apartment rental markets and find strong evidence of discrimination against applicants with Muslim and Turkish sounding names.
To the paper… Research group Behavioral Economics

23.07.2026 New discussion paper: “Social Benefit Salience Under Risk of Unemployment”

This study investigates how the connection of taxation to public Benefits can decrease tax payers’ perceived tax burden, affecting their labor-leisure decision.
To the paper… Anna Esslinger, M.Sc.

22.07.2026 New Discussionpaper: “Evaluation the effects of the German debt brake”

This paper assesses the effectiveness and fiscal implications of the German debt brake, a constitutional fiscal rule introduced in 2009 to ensure debt sustainability.
Check out the paper…

22.06.2026 New discussion paper on JamesBuchanan’s contractarianism

This paper summarizes the core tenets of James M. Buchanan’s research program, ist contractarianism, dealing with the source from which political orders are to derive their legitimacy, and its contractarianism, specifying the requirements for a political order to operate for the mutual advantage of all participants.
To the paper… The author: Viktor J. Vanberg

22.04.2026 Working paper: “Measuring Fiscal Literacy: A Framework and Evidence from the General Population”

In this study we propose a conceptual framework for Fiscal Literacy, and provide evidence on its prevalence in the general population.
To the paper… Research Group Behavioral Economics

The Walter Eucken Institute is a center of excellence for basic research on constitutional economics and ordoliberal thinking.

As an independent institution, the institute conducts economic and social science research in the tradition of the Freiburg School of Ordoliberal Economics. Thereby our main question is how our market-based competitive order can be maintained and further developed.

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Research at the Walter Eucken Institute

Those who want to secure the social market economy in the long term must think beyond short-term system corrections. In doing so, we are guided by the question of how improved incentives can be created through framework conditions of the economy and political competition in order to discover and adequately take into account the long-term interests of citizens.

Economic Policy and Public Finance
Behavioral Economics
History of Economic Thought

One of the research foci of the Walter Eucken Institute is in the area of fiscal sciences. Here, we analyze the state of the government budget and the macroeconomic consequences of government revenue and expenditure policies.

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In economics, most approaches to analyzing behavior have traditionally been based on the standard neoclassical economic model of behavior, in which an individual is assumed to be a fully rational, self-controlled, and utility-maximizing decisionmaker.

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The history of ordoliberalism begins with the Freiburg School, a research and teaching community of economists and lawyers at the University of Freiburg in the 1930s and 1940s.

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Portrait

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Lars P. Feld

Director of the Walter Eucken Institute

Lars P. Feld (*1966) has held the Chair of Economic Policy and Regulatory Economics at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg since 2010 and is Director of the Walter Eucken Institute. His research focuses on economic policy, public finance, new political economy and economic analysis of law.

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