Valedictory Lecture Frans van Winden
Research fellow Frans van Winden will give his valedictory lecture on Friday June 3, 2016 at the University of Amsterdam. He is founding-director of CREED (1991-2011) and founding co-director (1987-1992) and former member of the board of the Tinbergen Institute. He held visiting positions at a.o. the California Institute of Technology, Harvard Univeristy, CES (Munich), the Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung (Bielefeld), and UCLA.
In his valedictory lecture, Frans van der Winden argues for a broader approach to be taken in public economics, working towards an experiment-based positive decision science that includes attention for the important role of affect and relationships.
The central theme of the lecture is the role of emotions and affective relationships in political economy, a field of research that focuses on the allocation of scarce resources in a society.
Two key topics in political economy are addressed in particular: collective action – for example in the form of contributing to a clean and safe environment – and appropriation (for example in the form of taxation). In both cases, experimental evidence indicates that emotions and relationships have an important impact. Nevertheless, their role is neglected in current approaches of political economy like Public Finance and Public Economics, which maintain a too restricted view of what drives human behavior in the public as well as the private sector.
Van der Winden argues this should be redressed to come to a better understanding and better policies. However, instead of further tinkering with existing models and theories, a more productive approach is advocated in the long term, requiring a cross-disciplinary effort to integrate essential knowledge from all behavioral sciences into an experiment-based decision science.
F.A.A.M. van Winden, professor of Political Economy, specialising in public finances: Political Economy at a Crossroads – On the Role of Emotions and Relationships Towards a Decision Science.