VSPEE - Research seminars in law, economics, and empirics
Research seminars in law, economics, and empirics (VSPEE) take place on Tuesdays at 2 p.m. in room 38. A complete list of speakers can be found below. This seminar series is supported by the Center for Inequality and Open Society, funded by the European Regional Development Fund (project no. CZ.02.01.01/00/23_025/0008690).
Spring 2026
February 10, 2026 | 2 pm
Christoph Engel (Max Planck Institute and ETH Zurich’s Center for Law & Economics) "The Judicial Mind of Large Language Models"
February 17, 2026 | 2 pm
Bakhtawar Ali (Aix Marseille School of Economics) "Lawfare in Action: Evidence from Anti-Corruption Trials in Pakistan"
February 24, 2026 | 2 pm
Olivier Marie (Erasmus School of Economics) "Deliver Us from Crime? Online Platforms, Gig Jobs, and Offending"
March 3, 2026 | 2 pm
David Abrams (University of Pennsylvania Law and The Wharton School) "Prose and Cons: Evaluating the Legality of Police Stops with Large Language Models"
March 10, 2026 | 2 pm
Henrik Sigstad (BI Norwegian Business School) "Can Judges Be Replaced by Machines? AI, Legal Reasoning, and Incentives to Obey the Law"
March 17, 2026 | 2 pm
Giovanni Mastrobuoni (Collegio Carlo Alberto and University of Torino) "Women Behind Bars: Do Single-Gender Prisons Reduce Recidivism?"
March 24, 2026 | 2 pm
Svenja Hippel (University of Bonn) "Opening the Black Box: Exploring How the Design of Law Enforcement Influences Sanctions, Detection Probabilities, and Violations"
March 31, 2026 | 2 pm
Mario Gollwitzer (LMU Munich) "The (Social) Psychology of Revenge"
April 7, 2026 | 2 pm
Adam Poloček (ECB) "
Changes in punitiveness of the Czech Criminal Code"
April 14, 2026 | 2 pm
Mikko Aaltonen (University of Eastern Finland) "The Impacts of Guaranteed Basic Income on Crime Perpetration and Victimization"
April 21, 2026 | 2 pm
Mitja Kovacs (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law) "Compliance with International Law in a Dynamic Equilibrium"
Fall 2025
October 14, 2025 | 2 pm | room #347
David Kosař (Masaryk University, Faculty of Law) "Who Should Govern the Judiciary?"
October 21, 2025 | 2 pm | room #225
Jose Pina-Sánchez (University of Leeds) "Estimating the Prevalence of Unwarranted Disparities in Sentencing: Distinguishing between Good and Bad Controls"
October 28, 2025
canceled (Czechoslovak Independence Day)
November 4, 2025 | 2 pm | room #225
Omry Yoresh (London School of Economics) "Court Contagion: The Spread of In-Group Bias in India’s Criminal Courts"
November 11, 2025 | 2 pm | room #225
Janne Tukiainen (University of Turku) "Entry Barriers in Public Procurement: Evidence from Conjoint Survey Experiment"
November 18, 2025 | 2 pm | room #225
Zuzana Podaná (Faculty of Arts, Charles University) "Patterns of intimate partner violence against women in Europe: prevalence and associated risk factors"
November 25, 2025 | 2 pm | room #21
Alexander Morell (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) "Do German Judges Treat People with Foreign Names Differently? A Vignette Experiment"
December 2, 2025 | 2 pm | room #21
Achim Ahrens (CERGE-EI) "Welfare Benefits and Refugee Crime"
December 9, 2025 | 2 pm | room #21
Stefan Bauernschuster (University of Passau) "Birthright Citizenship and Youth Crime"
December 16, 2025 | 2 pm | room #38
Emily Owens (UC Irvine) "Does Management Matter? Evidence from Indigent Defense in Texas"
