Interdisciplinarity in Practice: Till and Kerstin present a joint paper

Report from the 

6. Workshop zu Ordnungsökonomie und Recht in Freiburg i.Br.

22.-23.11.2008

In November we had the opportunity to present our ideas on fisheries management, emanating from month of interdisciplinary thinking, before a larger audience at the Workshop organized by the Walter Eucken Institute in Freiburg.

The Workshop itself aimed at facilitating cooperation and the exchange of ideas between economists and lawyers, especially with regard to how institutional design can strengthen the self-regulation of economic systems. Accordingly, the participants recruited themselves from a large variety of fields and disciplines, ranging from tax-specialists concerned with gritty details of the German tax code to political philosophers. The individual presentations therefore touched upon a wide range of specialized topics all tied in to the overarching theme of institutional economics.

Located in the beautiful, snow covered, hamlet of Himmelreich, our venue provided the perfect background for fruitful discussions during and between sessions. As special guest Prof. Dr. Mestmäcker gave further input to the participants and entertained the group with anecdotes from his long career in various EC institutions on Saturday night.

Our own presentation, being the only genuinely interdisciplinary work, was well received. Even despite time constraints due to the late spot on Sunday afternoon, the other participants provided us with useful comments on our draft paper. All in all our trip to the snowy south served to support further sophistication of our cross-disciplinary approach to new concepts of fisheries management from both a legal and economic perspective.

Kirsten Ruckes, Institute for Macroeconomics
Till Müller, Walther Schücking Institute of International Law