About the workshop
This two-day workshop brings together early-career researchers working in applied microeconomics. It focuses on three interconnected themes at the heart of contemporary economic and policy debates:
Incentives
How individual and collective incentive structures shape effort, sorting across sectors and occupations, and distributional outcomes within firms, households, and public policies.
Institutions
How formal rules, informal norms, and governance structures shape long-run economic development, inequality, political outcomes, and the allocation of human capital.
Innovation
The determinants and consequences of technological change, knowledge diffusion, and entrepreneurship — including the economics of artificial intelligence as a general-purpose technology.
Each presentation is assigned a discussant, normally a professor, which gives an opportunity for every paper to receive constructive feedback from a senior researcher. The programme also includes a poster session: some submissions will be offered a poster slot rather than a talk, presented to all participants in a dedicated session.
The event includes two keynote lectures, twelve presentations, six posters, and plenty of networking over coffee and an informal dinner.
The three themes are broadly defined, spanning political economy; labour, family and gender; public economics; development; and firms and innovation.
Keynote speakers
Frédéric Docquier
LISER, Luxembourg
Guido Friebel
Goethe University Frankfurt
Call for papers
Any PhD student or postdoctoral researcher in applied economics is encouraged to submit a paper or an extended abstract, for consideration as a presentation or a poster.
- Dates: 14–15 January 2027
- Place: University of Lausanne, Switzerland
- Submission deadline: Monday, 26 October 2026, 23:59 CET
- Notification of decision: mid-November 2026
- Costs & funding: no participation fee and meals provided; funding for accommodation is available for participants affiliated with an institution outside Switzerland
Submit your paper or extended abstract via the online submission form.
Program
The detailed program will appear here after the selection of presenters is complete.
Outline: each day opens with a keynote lecture, followed by presenter sessions with assigned discussants. Day 1 closes with a poster session and the workshop dinner.
Submit your paper
Submit your paper or extended abstract for consideration using the online submission form:
Deadline: Monday, 26 October 2026, 23:59 CET.
Venue & practical information
The workshop takes place in person at the Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC Lausanne), University of Lausanne, Switzerland. The campus is about 1 h 10 min by public transport from Geneva Airport.
Sessions will be held in the Extranef building.
Scientific committee
- Marius Brülhart
- Rustamdjan Hakimov
- Rafael Lalive
- Jürgen Maurer
- Dzhamilya Nigmatulina
- Dominic Rohner
- Giuseppe Sorrenti
- Mathias Thoenig
- Giorgio Zanarone