Axel Ockenfels

Axel Ockenfels is Professor of Economics at the University of Cologne and Founding Director of the Adenauer School of Government. He serves as Director at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn and leads the Cologne Laboratory of Economic Research (CLER) and Center for Social and Economic Behavior (C-SEB). His affiliations include the Excellence Cluster ECONtribute, and he has held visiting positions at Penn State, Harvard, Stanford, and UC San Diego.

Ockenfels' primary research area is behavioral economic engineering, integrating game theory and behavioral economics to design markets, algorithms, and competitive strategies. He pioneered economic models of inequality aversion, intentionality, and fair procedures, with experimental studies on conditional cooperation and paternalism. His work spans crisis-era market design, including vaccine supply chains, power outage prevention, energy consumption interventions, and climate action incentives.

• Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
• Member, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences
• Member, North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences
• Member, National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech)
• Academic Advisory Board, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE)

Ockenfels has received prestigious awards, including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2005), Gossen Prize (2006), ERC Advanced Grant (2018), Zukunftspreis (2020), and Exeter Prize (2022). His recent publications focus on energy markets, climate policy, auction design, and behavioral incentives.