Report on the International Workshop in Experimental Economics at the ISM University of Management and Economics in Lithuania

by Rimvydas Baltaduonis, Ph.D.

Our international workshop in experimental economics at the ISM University of Management and Economics in Lithuania was another success. From the conversations with workshop participants and from the emails that Professor Bart Wilson and I get, we can say with confidence that the workshop had a huge impact on participants’ thinking about economics. Here are few comments:

"I'd like to thank you for very interesting and even "shocking" (eye-opening) seminar I had an opportunity to participate in, held on 6th April at the premises of University of Management and Economics." – Dr. Tomas Rudzkis, Mykolas Romeris University, Law Faculty, Department of Criminology

"I’d like to introduce it [experimental economics] to our authorities" - from evaluations

"I was skeptical but it has changed in the time of workshop and lectures" - from evaluations

"It was great. I am thinking about application in my field. I like this approach." - from evaluations

During three days of the workshop, we had around 70 participants that included faculty members from all major Lithuanian universities, graduate and undergraduate students (even few high school students who were selected by the Lithuanian National Academy), policy makers from public and private sector, representatives from Latvia, Czech Republic and Hungary.

Many workshop participants indicated that they would be very much interested in getting a deeper and much more detailed exposure to the experimental method in social sciences. As I reflect on the Lithuanian workshop, I am very glad to see genuine curiosity and enthusiasm among workshop participants to adopt economics experiments in their teaching and research endeavors. I hope that IFREE will be able to build on this experience and will continue its outreach in Eastern and Central Europe. And, as we see, the circumstances for such outreach just got better.

An online album with more photos of the workshop taken by an ISM photographer

On the last day of the workshop, ISM invited some journalists to observe the workshop. That resulted in a few stories in national, regional and online media. Here are few links for your information:

ISM University of Management and Economics

VZ.lt (Lithuanian equivalent of the Financial Times)

Vilniaus Diena

verslas.banga.lt