Jens Prüfer is an economist at Tilburg University’s Department of Economics and a member of the Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC). His research focuses on institutional and organizational questions, applying economic methodology to a broad set of disciplines, including law, management, political science, history, religious studies, and computer science. He studied Economics and Chinese studies in Tübingen (Germany) and Singapore and holds a PhD in Economics from Goethe University Frankfurt.
Research fields:
- Institutional Economics, in particular the study of economic governance and of collective enforcement institutions, which help to support cooperation/honest trade in the shadow of the law.
- Organizational Economics, in particular the economics of non-firm organizations such as nonprofits, cooperatives, social networks, clubs, associations or foundations. Why do these organizations exist and (how) do they behave differently in competitive markets?
- Law & Economics, in particular antitrust policy and ‘order without law’.
- Industrial Organization, in particular questions dealing with competition policy and regulation and the dependence of those issues on the governance structure of competitors.
- Industry studies, in particular of network industries such as the Internet backbone, telecommunications, software production, search engines, and cloud computing.
- Late research projects comprise the economics of privacy and big data, as well as the importance of intrinsic motivation of workers in “mission-driven” firms such as NGOs, charities, and many other nonprofits.
Jens Prüfer is the editor of sioe.org, the website of the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics, where he also regularly blogs. At Tilburg University’s School of Economics and Management, he serves as Academic Director of the MSc. Economics program.