Martin Schmidt

attending CSSS 2009 and while taking a picture

I am an Economics Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, College Park. I came to economics after having studied physics, chemistry and history of science in Switzerland and after having worked for a few years in IT business.

I am interested in the impact of social context on observable behavior and on economic and public policy outcomes. Social context can embody anything from institutions, social norms, culture, values, beliefs, aspirations, etc. I am also interested in biological constraints on social contexts, the transmission and mutual influence of social contexts and a related reverse effect of material incentives on social context. I am looking for analytical frameworks that allow comparative studies and model frameworks that allow incorporation of differences in social context into mathematical models.

I know a few things about the history of science and scientific knowledge production and remember the basics of my training in physics and chemistry. Recently I acquired the standard economics toolkit and then focused on institutional economics, experimental and behavioral economics, computational economics, and econometrics.

I am looking forward to learn new complex systems tools and theories, make interconnections between them, and get in touch with recent research that uses these tools. I would be surprised if the most rewarding thing were not discussions with other participants.

Most of all we need the funk.