The MISES Team, including Stefan Reichelstein, Nikolas Wölfing and Gunther Glenk, attended this year´s GEABA meeting. The German Economic Association of Business Administration e. V. (GEABA) was founded in 2000 as a non-profit organization in Koblenz, Germany. Within the annual GEABA meeting, researchers present their latest research contributions to business economics. This year´s conference took place from September 19–20 at the WHU, Otto Beisheim School of Management, under the topic: “The role of microeconomic methods in management”. More information on the annual conference can be found here.
Stefan Reichelstein participated in two panel discussions. In the first one on the importance of microeconomic methods in management research, the focus resided on the recent shift from theoretical to empirical work, which may suggest a falling relevance of analytical work. Yet, the panel agreed that this shift must largely be attributed to the availability of data and computing power that allows to test analytical propositions. Looking ahead, the panel participants concluded that microeconomic articles should integrate both theoretical and empirical methodology so as to obtain more relevant and accurate research results.
In the second panel on the importance of microeconomic methods in management practice, the discussion centered on the tools that microeconomics provides in order to solve many of the problems that the world faces today. Stefan Reichelstein stressed that some of the problems, like climate change, are of utmost importance to mankind. He also argued that microeconomics methods can contribute necessary solutions and that problems like climate change present great opportunities for research.
Gunther Glenk presented one of his recent papers in which he examines both conceptually and empirically the competitiveness of reversible Power-to-Gas technology. This technology can potentially replace hydrogen and electricity production that is today based on fossil fuels and, therefore, substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Gunther Glenk received the Walther-Rathenau award for the best paper of a young scholar. The full article on the award can be found here.