Max Planck Institute of Economics

The Max Planck Institute of Economics was a Max Planck Society research institute in Jena, Germany, founded in 1993 as the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems. It did not operate as a multi-faculty university. Its defining structure was a small set of director-led research groups devoted to evolutionary economics, experimental and behavioral economics, and the theory of strategic interaction, rather than a collegiate or land-grant model.

Work was organized in departments and associated experimental laboratories. Doctoral researchers used the institute's seminars and lab facilities and took courses through Friedrich Schiller University Jena, which supplied the university degree framework. An International Max Planck Research School on adapting behavior under uncertainty linked the institute to partner universities in Germany.

Scientific staff numbered in the dozens to low hundreds, typical of a Max Planck institute, with doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from Germany and abroad. There was no large undergraduate population. Alumni of the doctoral groups have gone into academic economics, public research, and applied economic research.

The degree pathway was the doctorate, with supervision inside a research group, a structured research-school curriculum, and no large taught-master's college. Jena is a compact university city in Thuringia, and graduate life centered on the institute and the neighboring university rather than a separate graduate campus.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Max Planck Institute of Economics lists 1 doctoral program, in economics.