14th WZB Conference on Markets and Political Economy

The WZB conference on Markets and Political Economy has been arranged 13 times previously. For the 14th event of this kind, WZB wishes to emphasize its connections to Norway. The theme of this conference is "Conflict and conflict resolution in business a nd politics", and this is a field in which considerable advances have been made recently. This has motivated the suggestion to bring together a group of about 30 experts from European and American universities who work within the fields of contests, tour naments and related problems. Important contributions to these fields have been made by German and Norwegian economists (or economists residing in these countries). The conference will provide a platform for disseminating this work, and will give young researchers in these fields an opportunity to catch up with the latest developments. Several leading scholars hace already expressed an interest in participating at this conference. The local organizer of the conference in Berlin will be The Social Scie nce Research Institute Berlin (WZB). This institution has wide experience in arranging such conferences, and is looking in 2005 to strengthen its ties to Norwegian universities.