Wolfgang Luhan

Summary

I am a Professor of Behavioural Economics in the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance and the REF 2028 UoA17 Coordinator. I have co-founded a research network on decision making for others. With my colleague Sascha Füllbrunn, I have organized two international research conferences (NL, UK), and guest-edited a special issue of the Journal of Economic Psychology on this topic.

I am part of a research network pioneering work on behavioural and experimental macroeconomics (see, e.g., my papers from 2013 and 2016) which was included in vol. 2 of the Handbook of Experimental Economics.

I work in the fields of economics, political science, and in economic psychology, and I am aiming to include all aspects of social and strategic behaviour in my research.

Biography

I hold a Ph.D. in Economics (Dr.rer.soc.oec) from the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and a M.Sc. in Economics (Mag.rer.soc.oec) from the University of Linz (Austria). Before joining Portsmouth Business School I was the director and co-founder of the experimental research laboratories at the Ruhr-University of Bochum and the University of Oldenburg and a visiting professor at the University of Hamburg. I joined the University of Portsmouth in 2016 and have co-founded the behavioural economics research group, the Behavioural Analysis Research Lab (BAREL) and the BaL Experimental Research Cluster here.

I was Associate Head for Research (Economics) from 2019 to 2023 and I am currently the REF28 UoA17 coordinator.

Research interests

I am interested in people’s behaviour, what factors influence their decisions, and why the standard economic model is mostly wrong. I study how we behave on markets, while bargaining, and when deciding for others.

My current research interests include:

decision making for others
behavioural and experimental macroeconomics
bargaining
group decisions
experimental political economics
social preferences
experimental methods
lying aversion

Teaching responsibilities

I have taught a large varitey of undergraduate, postgratduate and PhD courses. I am currently module coordinator for Behavioural and Experimental Economics and I am teaching Psychology and Altruism in Economics as well as postgraduate classes in experimental methods.

Current Ph.D. Students:

Paul-Emile Mangin, "Privatising Gains and Socialising Losses in Economic Decision Making"

Former Ph.D. Students:

Georgia Buckle, "Decision Making for Others: The Impact of Reputational Costs, Preference Differences, and Increased Responsibility"

Joanna Afonso, "Assessing the impact of microfinance programmes: learning through a collaborative project in Pakistan and Zimbabwe"

Kate Whitman (third supervisor), "Understanding and Preventing Online Piracy"

Media availability

I am happy to take calls and emails from the media on my research, and am aware of the needs to respond to journalists in a timely manner. Please contact me directly on either [email protected] or 023 92 844129.

Research outputs

2026

Fifty-five crowd-sourced designs assessing carbon pricing support in the U.S.

Holzknecht, A., Schwaiger, R., Blanco, E., Huber, J., Kirchler, M., Abatayo, A. L., Adamus, M., Bakalo, L., Barreiro-Hurle, J., Bas, B., Basaglia, P., Bhattacharya, O., Bıçakçı, Ü., Blunden, H., Blunt, M., Bohmann, S., Brañas-Garza, P., Buckle, G. E., Burgstaller, L., Cadario, R., Santa, J. C., Chen, F., Cohen, D., Demiral, E. E., Drichoutis, A., Drobner, C., Drupp, M., Ebert, C., Erkut, H., Exadaktylos, F., Fanghella, V., Fawson, W., Felder, L., Fuhrmann-Riebel, H., Goerg, S. J., Gorny, P. M., Gottweis, R., Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, A., Grieder, M., Gruener, S., Haan, P., Habibnia, H., Hafenbrädl, S., Henry, E., Herziger, A., Holenweger, G., Huber, C., Jacquemet, N., Jin, T., Kalleitner, F., Kaplan, T. R., Kasper, M., Kažemekaitytė, A., KC, R. P., König, T., Kuzlukluoglu, C., Law, K. F., Lembregts, C., Li, S., López Vargas, K., Luhan, W., Mak, V., Marcos, A., Marino Fages, D., Maus, P., Mengel, F., Mermelstein, I., Mitra, A., Molnar, A., Moritz, L., Mukherjee, K., Musshoff, O., Mussio, I., Necker, S., Nieken, P., Nockur, L. E., Orifici, M. C., Palma, M., Pandit, N., Parker-Rollins, T., Picard, J., Plonsky, O., Priolo, G., Quandt, J., Rahmani Azad, Z., Rehák, R., Richter, A., Rohmann, A., Rommel, J., Roth, Y., Saglam, U., Salazar-Ordoñez, M., Schmacker, R., Schmitz, J., Schneider, C. R., Schulte-Mecklenbeck, M., Sharma, G., Siemroth, C., Srivastava, N., Šrol, J., Steimanis, I., Syropoulos, S., Vilares, I., Vivek,, Vorlaufer, T., Walker, M., Wang, F., Weidenholzer, E., Weidenholzer, S., Xu, Y., Yin, H., Yu, J. V., Zhao, X.

30 Sep 2026, In: Nature Human Behaviour

Research output: Article