Research - Philipps-Universität Marburg

We work on research questions in the fields of Public Economics (in particular, the economics of taxation and tax enforcement) Applied Microeconomics (e.g., crime, law enforcement, health and education) and Behavioral Economics (e.g., norms, procrastination). We mainly focus on empirical research, using tools from microeconometrics but also lab&field experiments and surveys.

Our teaching agenda includes courses in Public Economics at the Bachelor and the Master level as well as a course on Informal Institutions (like social norms), a methods course on Microeconometrics and seminars that are closely related to our own research.

Christian Traxler is co-organizer of the Transatlantic Workshops on the Economics of Crime (which started as Bonn&Paris Workshops on Law and Economics). For more information click here.

Published & Forthcoming Papers

Gerlinde Fellner, Rupert Sausgruber and Christian Traxler. Testing Enforcement Strategies in the Field: Threat, Moral Appeal and Social Information, Journal of the European Economic Association, forthcoming.
Gerhard Riener and Christian Traxler. Norms, moods and free lunch: Longitudinal evidence on payments from a Pay-What-You-Want restaurant, The Journal of Socio-Economics, 2012, Vol.41, p 476-483.
Christian Traxler and Joachim Winter. Survey Evidence on Conditional Norm Enforcement, European Journal of Political Economy, 2012, Vol. 28, p. 390-398.
Christian Traxler, 2012. Majority Voting and the Welfare Implications of Tax Avoidance, Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 96(1-2), p 1-9.
Johannes Rincke and Christian Traxler, 2011. Enforcement Spillovers, Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 93(4), p 1224-1234.
Sebastian Kube and Christian Traxler, 2011. The Interaction of Legal and Social Norm Enforcement, Journal of Public Economic Theory, Vol. 13 (5), p. 639–660.
Christian Traxler and Mathias Spichtig, 2011. Social Norms and the Indirect Evolution of Conditional Cooperation, Journal of Economics, Vol. 102 (3), p. 237-262.
Joel Slemrod and Christian Traxler, 2010. Optimal Observability in a Linear Income Tax, Economics Letters, Vol.108(2), 105-108.
Christian Traxler, 2010. Social Norms and Conditional Cooperative Taxpayers, European Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 26, 89-103.
Stefan T. Trautmann and Christian Traxler, 2010.Reserve prices as reference points – Evidence from auctions for football players at hattrick.org, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol.31(2), p.230-240.
Christian Traxler, 2009. Voting over Taxes: The Case of Tax Evasion, Public Choice, Vol. 140(1), 43-58.
Sven Stöwhase and Christian Traxler, 2005. Tax Evasion and Auditing in a Federal Economy, International Tax and Public Finance, Vol. 12 (4), 515-531.

Working Papers

Steffen Altmann and Christian Traxler. Nudges at the Dentist, Working Paper, July 2012.
Franz Westermaier, Brand Morefield and Andrea Mühlenweg. Impacts of Parental Health Shocks on Children’s Development of Non-Cognitve Skills, SOEPpapers, 2013-542.
Christian Traxler and Carsten Burhop. Poverty and crime in 19th century Germany: A reassessment, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Working Paper 2010-35.
Christian Traxler and Andreas Reutter. Apportionment, Fiscal Equalization and Decentralized Tax Enforcement, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Working Paper 2008-21.