Bruno Frey

Bruno Frey 2010

Bruno S. Frey (born May 4, 1941 in Basel, Switzerland) is a Swiss economist. He is a guest professor for Political Economy at Zeppelin University in Germany, and a former professor at the University of Zurich and the Business School of the University of Warwick (UK). Perhaps his best known research relates to critiques of Homo economicus or economic man, arguing that it places excessive emphasis on extrinsic motivation rather than intrinsic motivation. Another field where his contributions have gained considerable attention is the economic analysis of happiness. Frey has written, co-written or edited more than a dozen books and has written more than 350 journal articles, mostly in economics journals, but also in political science, sociology and psychology. In 2011, Frey was criticised for and admitted to self-plagiarism.[1][2] In 2012, the government of Bhutan appointed him member of an international group of experts on the subject of Wellbeing and Happiness. The work and recommendations of the panel are scheduled to be presented and discussed in the United Nations General Assembly in 2013 and 2014.[3] According to the RePEc ranking (Research Papers in Economics) of August 2014, Frey is ranked 7th among 21,715 European economists.[4] In the ranking of "the most influential economists in Switzerland" produced by the leading Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung in September 2014, which considers scientific performance and public perception in media and politics, Frey ranks on third place.[5] Frey is ranked number 5 among German economists according to the F.A.Z.-Ranking of September 5th, 2015.

Work

Bruno Frey's main focus lies on the application of economics to new areas (politics, art, history, terrorism and war, family) and the extension of the model of human behavior to incorporate psychological and sociological elements. He has been among the first economists to deal with: a) empirical models about the relation between the economy and politics, especially politico-economic cycles; b) new concepts of federalism (Functional, Overlapping, Competing Jurisdictions, FOCJ); c) crowding-out and intrinsic motivation; d) orders and awards.

Contributions to Political Economics

Democracy and Federalism

In this area, Bruno Frey puts a special emphasis on the analysis of the role of direct democracy. Together with Reiner Eichenberger, he developed a functionally oriented form of federalism called FOCJ (Functional, Overlapping, Competing Jurisdictions). He regards direct democracy as well as federalism as guiding institutions of the future.[6]

Economics of Terrorism

Frey argues that, where possible, terrorists should be reintegrated into the civil society. To achieve this goal, they should be engaged in a debate where their concerns are heard. According to Frey, the decentralization of the economy and of politics is a useful tool against terrorism. In his view, deterrence is rarely useful. To advance his arguments, Frey relies on historical experiences.[7]

Contributions to Behavioral Economics

Motivation and crowding-out

Economists have long since assumed that higher monetary compensation will lead agents to work more. According to Frey, though, monetary incentives can also have a counterproductive effects, namely, if they crowd out intrinsic motivation to work.[8]

Economics of awards (orders, medals, further honors)

While, in economics, monetary rewards are in the center of attention, Frey suggests an increased use of non-monetary incentives, in particular awards. He points to the fact that awards are nowadays in particular made use of in profit-oriented firms.[9]

Contributions to Happiness Research

Frey was one of the first to apply economic tools to the phenomenon of happiness. In particular, he showed that not only demographic and economic factors such as income or unemployment affect happiness, but that institutional factors like democracy and political decentralization are also important.[10]

Contributions to Corporate Governance

Frey vehemently argues against pay for performance and sees advantages in a fixed pay. He suggests a random selection from a firm's stakeholders to determine the composition of its supervisory board. The latter, which comprise clients, employees and the wider public, cannot secure their investments by means of contracts.

Contributions to the Economics of Art and Culture

In his research, Frey deals with the organization of theaters, operas and museums, as well as with the yield of investments in pieces of art. He argues that – in comparison to other investments – the latter are financially less worthwhile. Such investments are nevertheless made because of the mental yield that accrues.

Career

Frey studied economics at the University of Basel and at the University of Cambridge, obtaining a doctorate in economics in 1965. In 1969 he was appointed associate professor of economics at the University of Basel. From 1970 to 2010, he was associate professor at the University of Basel. From 1970 to 1977, he was a full professor of public finance at the University of Konstanz in Germany. Frey was appointed as a full professor of economics at the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics (IEW) of the University of Zurich (UZH) in 1977.

His first book, Umweltökonomie (Environmental Economics), was published in Göttingen in 1972. During his career, he has been a prolific author, publishing hundreds of articles in economics as well as in a number of different fields including sociology, political science, and psychology. Some of his work has reached the top journals of the economics profession, such as The Journal of Political Economy and the American Economic Review. He is one of the most cited researchers according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)[11] and one of the most cited authors in economics according to Research Papers in Economics. Since its inception, Frey has been heading the Handelsblatt ranking of researchers at universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with respect to their lifework.[12]

Frey was appointed managing editor of Kyklos, a Swiss journal on political economy, in 1969. He maintains that position to this day. Since 2004, he has served as one of four directors of research at the Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA); besides Reiner Eichenberger (University of Fribourg), René L. Frey and Margit Osterloh (University of Zurich).[13]

In 2004, he was appointed member of the eight-member expert committee of the Copenhagen Consensus, besides four Nobel laureates. The goal consisted in the development of recommendations as to which challenges of humanity (hunger, AIDS, water provision, access to sanitary systems, restrictions on trade, corruption and global warming) to give priority, based on economic cost-benefit analyses.

In July 2011, the University of Zurich decided to set up an ad hoc commission to investigate allegations of publication misconduct by Frey et al. In October of the same year the commission agreed on a report that found Frey guilty of misconduct.[14] In 2012, the University of Zurich declined to renew his contract.[15]
From 2010-2013 Frey worked as a professor at the Business School of the University of Warwick (UK). From 2013-2015 Frey worked as Senior Professor at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany.

Since August 2015 Frey is Permanent Visiting Professor at the University of Basel, Switzerland, where he is the Co-Founder of the Center for Research in Economics and Well-Being (CREW).

Self-plagiarism

During 2010 and 2011, Bruno Frey, along with coauthors Benno Torgler and David Savage, published five articles concerning the Titanic disaster in five different academic journals. Most peer-reviewed journals have editorial policies prohibiting the publication of work that has already been published in other journals, and requiring that authors make a good faith effort to cite prior works. At the end of April 2011, blogs accused Bruno Frey and his coauthors Benno Torgler and David Savage of "self-plagiarism" and of not having cited works of other scholars on the same issue.[16][1][17]

On May 3, 2011, editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives David Autor wrote a public letter[2] to Bruno Frey stating that "there is very substantial overlap between these articles and your JEP publication. Indeed, to my eye, they are substantively identical." Pointing out that the other articles were not cited, Autor said that "we find your conduct in this matter ethically dubious and disrespectful to the American Economic Association, the Journal of Economic Perspectives and the JEP's readers." Frey accepted the accusations and offered his apologies to David Autor in a public response,[2] saying, "[i]t was a grave mistake on our part for which we deeply apologize. It should never have happened. This is deplorable."

For this offence, Bruno Frey, Benno Torgler, and David Savage were placed on a list of self-plagiarism offenders at Research Papers in Economics.[18] In February 2011, it had been revealed that then German Federal Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had committed plagiarism for his doctoral thesis. Wiki technology was used to show the extent of the academic misbehaviour, and he stepped down. In the months after this, the VroniPlag Wiki was used to reveal more cases of plagiarism in PhD theses. Mimicking this, a project FreyPlag was started in August 2011 to reveal self-plagiarism by Frey and his co-authors, and the Swiss and German press reported.[19][20][21][22][23] After a report of an ad hoc committee of the University of Zurich found them guilty of misconduct, the university did not renew his contract.[24]

Selected bibliography

Academic honours

References

  1. 1 2 Shea, Christopher (13 July 2011). "Economist Slammed for ‘Concurrent Publications'". The Wall Street Journal.
  2. 1 2 3 http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.3.239
  3. ↑ http://www.sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/files/mssi/Bhutan_Proposal-International-Expert-Working-Group_2012-14.pdf
  4. ↑ "RePEc Ranking". RePEc / IDEAS. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  5. ↑ "Die einflussreichsten Ökonomen in der Schweiz". NZZ, 6 September 2014, Nr. 206, page 34.
  6. ↑ Beat Kappeler (Hrsg.). Was vermag Ökonomie? Silvio Borner, Bruno S. Frey, Kurt Schiltknecht zu wirtschaftlichem Wert, Wachstum, Wandel und Wettbewerb. Zürich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung. S. 29 (2002)
  7. ↑ Dealing with Terrorism: Stick or Carrot. Cheltenham, UK and Nothhampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. (2004)
  8. ↑ Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 1997. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out", American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 746-55, September.
  9. ↑ Frey, Bruno S. & Susanne Neckermann, 2006. "Auszeichnungen: Ein vernachlässigter Anreiz", Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik 7(2), pages 271 - 284.
  10. ↑ Frey, Bruno and Stutzer, Alois: Happiness and economics. How the economy and institutions affect well-being. Princeton Univ. Press: Princeton (2002)
  11. ↑ http://researchanalytics.thomsonreuters.com/highlycited/names/f/. Last accessed April 2nd, 2012
  12. ↑ http://tool.handelsblatt.com/tabelle/index.php?id=79&pc=250. Last accessed April 2nd, 2012
  13. ↑ http://www.crema-research.ch
  14. ↑ University of Zurich ad hoc commission report about academic misconduct by Bruno Frey
  15. ↑ http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtschaft/konjunktur/Ansehen-ist-wichtiger-als-Geld/story/12240196
  16. ↑ "A summary of the Bruno Frey affair", Olaf Storbeck, economicsintelligence.com, 2011/07/07. Last accessed January 25, 2013
  17. ↑ Storbeck, Olaf (2011-07-07). "Starökonom schreibt bei sich selbst ab". Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  18. ↑ http://plagiarism.repec.org/offenders.html
  19. ↑ "FreyPlag". 2012. Retrieved 2015.
  20. ↑ Gasser, Benno (2012-04-25). "Bruno S. Frey bleibt Professor – in England". Tagesanzeiger. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  21. ↑ Ritter, Pascal (2012-04-27). "Auch wer sich selbst kopiert, plagiiert". Zürcher Studierendenzeitung. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  22. ↑ Pastega, Nadja (2012-04-29). "«ICH FÜHLE MICH NICHT BESONDERS SCHULDIG". Sonntagszeitung. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  23. ↑ Storbeck, Olaf (2011-09-12). "Neue Eigenplagiate bringen Züricher Top-Ökonomen unter Druck". Handelsblatt. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  24. ↑ Storbeck, Olaf (2012-04-23). "Eigenplagiate: Züricher Ökonom in Zwangsrente geschickt". Handelsblatt. Retrieved 26 July 2012.

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