From: MERSS [merss@sfb504.uni-mannheim.de] Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 10:27 AM To: MERSS Subject: Mannheim Empirical Research Summer School Attachments: merss_call_2005.pdf Dear Colleague, please find enclosed the reminder and last call for applications for MERSS - Mannheim Empirical Research Summer School We would be glad if you could pass on the enclosed file to potentially interested young researchers. The Mannheim Empirical Research Summer School for junior researchers (doing their Ph.D. or having just finished their Ph.D.) is devoted to the fundamental methods of empirical research in economics: experimental economics and econometrics. The school will take place from Tuesday, 28 June 2005 to Friday, 8 July 2005. The importance of empirical methods applied to micro (household or firm) data, and the use of experimental methods to obtain new insights into micro behavior, has been emphasized most prominently by the Nobel Prizes in Economics to James Heckman and Daniel McFadden in 2000, and to Vernon Smith in 2002 (the latter together with Daniel Kahneman, for the closely related field of Behavioral Economics). Yet, graduate teaching still neglects these important fields, and in particular the close links that exist between econometrics and experimental methods. The Mannheim Empirical Research Summer School (MERSS) aims at closing this gap - four leading contributors to these fields will both present participants with some basic facts and present their personal views and research agendas. Uri Gneezy, Vassilis Hajivassiliou, Dan Houser, and Arthur van Soest will give an introduction into experimental economics and introduce econometric methods tailored to specific data generation processes. Workshops will allow participants to elaborate on the design of experiments. In addition, the local organizers present some of their own work in these areas, and participants are invited (yet not required) to present their research as well. The summer school's novel focus on linking experimental and econometric methods, and its approach of combining lectures, classroom discussions, student presentations, and hands-on workshops in the computer lab, has proved very successful with participants since the first MERSS in 2001. MERSS is a joint enterprise by members of the Faculties of Economics and Business Administration at Mannheim University. Local organisers are Markus Glaser, Oliver Kirchkamp, and Daniel Schunk at the SFB 504 at Mannheim University -- More information about the school is available online at http://www.sfb504.uni-mannheim.de/merss/