About Me

Behavioral game theorist, educated in economics and philosophy (logic & scientific method). Assistant Professor at UZH and Privatdozent at ETH. Previously at London School of Economics, Oxford, École normale sup (Paris School of Economics), Ca' Foscari, Johns Hopkins and Yale (Cowles Foundation), my research interests include (Behavioral) Market Design and Learning in Games applied to markets and collective goods.

My work has been applied, for example, at Golden Set Analytics (tennis strategy consultancy), at Rally (trading platform for collectible assets), and via DVSN (tech tool for fair division for teaching, DAOs, etc.). I am also a Co-Director at the Zurich Center for Market Design open to collaborations, and I enjoy fun real-world stuff, for free even, so please be in touch!

Heinrich H. Nax
heinrich.nax{at}uzh.ch

[The picture above, by an unknown photographer, shows Johannes Itten doing some physical exercises with his students during class. I don't know whether Johannes was particularly good at physical exercises, but the photo looks fun, and his color star is incredible.]

Publications (see also )


Jiawei Huang, Vinzenz Thoma, Zebang Shen, Heinrich H. Nax and Niao He

Learning to Steer Markovian Agents under Model Uncertainty

ICLR 2025: The 13th International Conference on Learning Representations, 2025.

Panayotis Mertikopoulos, Heinrich H. Nax and Bary S. R. Pradelski

Quick or cheap? Breaking points in dynamic markets

Journal of Mathematical Economics, 2024.

Heinrich H. Nax

The “Black Box” Method for Experimental Economics

Games, 2023.

Barbara Ikica, Simon Jantschgi, Heinrich H. Nax, Diego Nunez Duran and Bary S.R. Pradelski

Competitive Market Behavior: Convergence and Asymmetry in the Experimental Double Auction

International Economic Review, 2023.

Caleb Koch and Heinrich H. Nax

Groundwater Usage and Strategic Complements: Parts I & II

Games, 2022.

Philip Grech, Adrian Soos and Heinrich H. Nax

Incentivization matters: a meta-perspective on dictator games

Journal of the Economic Science Association, 2022.

Simon Jantschgi, Heinrich H. Nax, Bary S.R. Pradelski and Marek Pycia

Double Auctions and Transaction Costs

EC '22: Proceedings of the 21st ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, 2022.

Heinrich H. Nax and Jonathan Newton

Deep and Shallow Thinking in the Long Run

Theoretical Economics, 2022.

Ivo Baur and Heinrich H. Nax

Measures against the abandonment of common property summer pastures: experimental evidence from joint appropriation–provision games

Ecology and Society, 2021.

Marko Gosak, Moritz Kraemer, Heinrich H. Nax, Matjaž Perc and Bary S.R. Pradelski

Endogenous social distancing and its underappreciated impact on the epidemic curve

Nature Scientific Reports, 2021.

Ennio Bilancini, Leonardo Boncinelli and Heinrich H. Nax

What noise matters? Experimental evidence for stochastic deviations in social norms

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2020.

Aidas Masiliunas and Heinrich H. Nax

Framing and Repeated Competition

Games and Economic Behavior, 2020.

Panayotis Mertikopoulos, Heinrich H. Nax and Bary S. R. Pradelski

Quick or cheap? Breaking points in dynamic markets

EC '20: Proceedings of the 21st ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, 2020.

Philip Grech and Heinrich H. Nax

Rational Altruism? On Preference Estimation and Dictator Game Experiments

Games and Economic Behavior, 2019.

Bary S.R. Pradelski and Heinrich H. Nax

Market sentiments and convergence dynamics in decentralized assignment economies

International Journal of Game Theory, 2019.

Ivo Baur and Heinrich H. Nax

Adapting Governance Incentives to Avoid Common Pool Resource Underuse: The Case of Swiss Summer Pastures

Sustainability, 2019.

Heinrich H. Nax and Jonathan Newton

Risk Attitudes and Risk Dominance in the Long Run

Games and Economic Behavior, 2019.

Stefano Duca and Heinrich H. Nax

Groups and scores: the decline of cooperation

Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 2018.

Heinrich H. Nax, Stefano Balietti, Ryan O. Murphy and Dirk Helbing

Adding noise to the institution: An experimental welfare investigation of the contribution-based grouping mechanism

Social Choice and Welfare, 2018.

Heinrich H. Nax

Uncoupled aspiration adaptation dynamics into the core

German Economic Review, 2018.

Heinrich H. Nax, Ryan O. Murphy, Stefano Duca and Dirk Helbing

Contribution-Based Grouping under Noise

Games, 2017.

Stefano Duca, Dirk Helbing and Heinrich H. Nax

Assortative Matching with Inequality in Voluntary Contribution Games

Computational Economics, 2017.

Heinrich H. Nax, Ryan O. Murphy and Dirk Helbing

Nash Dynamics, Meritocratic Matching, and Cooperation

in: Social dilemmas, institutions, and the evolution of cooperation, Edited by Ben Jann and Wojtek Przepiorka, 2017.

Matthias Leiss and Heinrich H. Nax

Option-implied objective measures of market risk

Elsevier Journal of Banking and Finance, 2017.

Heinrich H. Nax, Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew, Stuart A. West and H. Peyton Young

Learning in a black box

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2016.

Heinrich H. Nax

The Logic of Collective Rating

Frontiers in Physics, 2016.

Heinrich H. Nax and Alexandros Rigos

Assortativity evolving from social dilemmas

Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2016.

Michael Mäs and Heinrich H. Nax

A behavioral study of "noise" in coordination games

Journal of Economic Theory, 2016.

Heinrich H. Nax and Bary S.R. Pradelski

Core Stability and Core Selection in a Decentralized Labor Matching Market

Games, 2016.

Heinrich H. Nax and Bary S.R. Pradelski

Evolutionary dynamics and equitable core selection in assignment games

International Journal of Game Theory, 2015.

Heinrich H. Nax, Ryan O. Murphy and Kurt A. Ackermann

Interactive preferences

Economics Letters, 2015.

Heinrich H. Nax, Matjaž Perc, Attila Szolnoki and Dirk Helbing

Stability of cooperation under image scoring in group interactions

Nature Scientific Reports, 2015.

Matthias Leiss, Heinrich H. Nax and Didier Sornette

Super-Exponential Growth Expectations and the Global Financial Crisis

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2015.

Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew, Heinrich H. Nax and Stuart A. West

Payoff-based learning explains the decline in cooperation in public goods games

Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological Sciences, 2015.

Heinrich H. Nax and Matjaž Perc

Directional learning and the provisioning of public goods

Nature Scientific Reports, 2015.

Heinrich H. Nax

Equity dynamics in bargaining without information exchange

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2015.

Heinrich H. Nax

A Note on the Core of TU-cooperative Games with Multiple Membership Externalities

Games, 2014.

Heinrich H. Nax, Bary S.R. Pradelski and H.Peyton Young

Decentralized dynamics to optimal and stable states in the assignment game

in: IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Proceedings, 2013.

Heinrich H. Nax

Modeling Hostage-Taking: On Reputation and Strategic Rationality of Terrorists

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2008.

Work in progress(see also )


Svenja Hippel, Sven Hoeppner and Heinrich H. Nax

Heterogeneity, not opportunism, is what organizes results from a replication of “Self-interest and fairness: self-serving choices of justice principles"

Draft available upon request


Ilia Shilov, Ezzat Elokda, Sophie Hall, Heinrich H. Nax and Saverio Bolognani

Welfare and Cost Aggregation for Multi-Agent Control: When to Choose Which Social Cost Function, and Why?

Discussion Paper


Ezzat Elokda, Heinrich H. Nax, Saverio Bolognani and Florian Dörfler

Karma: An Experimental Study

Working Paper


Simon Jantschgi, Heinrich H. Nax, Bary S.R. Pradelski and Marek Pycia

Double Auctions and Transaction Costs

Working paper


Simon Jantschgi, Heinrich H. Nax, Bary S.R. Pradelski and Marek Pycia

Double Auctions: A Unified Treatment

Working Paper


Simon Jantschgi and Heinrich H. Nax

Minimax and Sports: (i) Tennis, and (ii) Football/Soccer Penalties

Draft available upon request


Zurich Replication Group

Projects: (i) Dictator Games, (ii) Double Auctions, (iii) Fairness Principles, and (iv) under SCORE

Please contact us for details

Talk on “Double Auctions: A Modern Experimental Perspective” at the 2025 Young Scholars Workshop on Experimental and Behavioral Economics at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics (May 30-31, 2025)

Talk on “Double Auctions: Recent Advances” at the Corvinus University of Budapest Economics Seminar (May 14, 2025)

Talk on "Social Norms of Cooperation" at the Thurgau Experimental Economics Meeting on Technology and Human Behaviour in Kreuzlingen (March 19-21, 2025)

Talk on “Mechanisms for Cooperation” at the Back to the Future Workshop at ETH Zurich (February 10-14, 2025)

Talk on “Replications: A Meta Perspective” at the Innsbruck Winter Summit on (Un)Ethical Behavior in Markets (February 5-7, 2025)

Talk on “Double Auctions and Transaction Costs” at the IX Hurwicz Workshop on Mechanism Design Theory (December 5-7, 2024)

Talk on "Cooperative Game Theory and the Core" at the Conference in Honor of Françoise Forges (December 16-17, 2024)

Talk on "Replication in Theory and Practice" at the SFB Research Seminar at the University of Innsbruck (November 20, 2024)

Talk on "Learning and Competitive Market Behavior in Experimental Double Auctions" at the Finance Seminar of Maastricht University (October 23, 2024)

Talk on "An 'Inverse' Experimental Approach" at the Economics Research Seminar of the University of Florence (November 5, 2024)

Talk on "Fees and market fairness in double auctions" at ASSET 2024 (October 31-November 2, 2024)

Talk on "What's a failed replication?" at the CBEN & MVE Joint Meeting (October 24-25, 2024)

Talk on "Self-Serving Norms and Morals" at the Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague (October 22, 2024)

Talk on "Market Norms" at the GfeW Annual Conference in Cologne (September 25-27, 2024)

Talk on "Behavior in High-Pressure Situations" at the Workshop on Sports, Economics, and Natural Experiments at the CRSA (June 24, 2024)

Talk on "Predicting Markets using Experimental Data" at the Thurgau Experimental Economics Meeting on Technology and Human Behaviour in Kreuzlingen (March 20-22, 2024)

Talk on "Behavior in High-Pressure Situations" at The Lisbon Meetings in Game Theory and Applications (June 5-7, 2024)

Talk on "Sports and Minimax" at the Zurich Sports Analytics Club (April 23, 2024)

Talk on "Explanations of Convergence in Markets" at ASSET 2023 (October 19-21, 2023)

Talk on "Learning Foundations of Competitive Equilibrium" at LEG 2023 (August 30-September 1, 2023)

Panel on "Scientific Failures" at the 2023 ESA World Meeting (June 27, 2023)

Talk on "Price dynamics in Double Auctions and their micro foundations" at the Alpine Game Theory Symposium 2023 (June 26-30, 2023)

Talk on "Meta Analysis of Market Experiments" at IMEBESS 2023 (May 16-17, 2023)

Talk on "Replicating Double Auction Experiments" at IBF Research Seminar (May 5, 2023)

Talk on "Markets and the evolution of fair prices" at the IMT Lucca Economic Series Seminars (May 3, 2023)

Talk on "Behavioral learning dynamics in games" at the NUS Games, Learning, and Networks Workshop (April 3-21, 2023)

Discussion of "New Applications for Double Auction Experiments" at ISEG Micro Group (February 7, 2023)

Talk on "Minimax and tennis" at the Paris School of Economics Behavior Seminar (December 1, 2022)

Talk on "Behavioral Change in Games and Markets" at the Computational Social Science Seminar at ETH Zurich (November 8, 2022)

Talk on "Market Convergence and Behavioral Market Design" at the ISEG Research Seminar (November 23, 2022)

Talk on "Market Experiments" at the GfeW Annual Conference in Salzburg (September 21-23, 2022)

Talk on "Fair Prices?" at the Conference on The Economic Sociology of Marketplaces at University of St Gallen (September 15-16, 2022)

Talk on "Convergence in Continuous Double Auctions: Theory and Experiments" at Seoul National University (June 29, 2022)

Talk on "Equilibrium Selection in Evolutionary Games" at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (June 29, 2022)

Talk on "Confounds in Measuring Preferences" at the 2022 Australasian Meeting of the Econometric Society (July 7-9, 2022)

Talk on "Learning in Games: New Results" at the Economic Theory Seminar at Oxford (May 20, 2022)

Talk on "Morgan's Canon or What's the point of <Black Box> experiments?" at the LSE Workshop "What is the game?" (April 5-6, 2022)

Talk on "Learning in Games: New Results" at the Behaviour, Economics, and Evolution (BEE) Lecture Series at UNIL (April 7, 2022)

Talk on "Market Behavior under Minimal Information" at the 2nd ZI Conference (October 21-23, 2021)

Talk on "Double auctions a la Vernon Smith: a large-scale reproduction" at the German Experimental Economics Association Meeting 2021 (September 22-24, 2021)

Talk on "Behavioral evidence from market experiments" in the NCCR Automation Seminar Series (November 15, 2021)

Talk on "What <noise> matters?" at Bar-Ilan's Game and Economic Theory Seminar (October 26, 2021)

Talk on "Dictator Games and Social Preference Estimation" at the University of Trento (October 28, 2021)

Talk on "Best reply dynamics and "noise" models in coordination games" at the Workshop on Behavioural Game Theory 2021 (July 15-16, 2021)

Talk on "Deep and shallow thinking in the long run" (joint work with Jonny Newton) at the 2021 Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society (June 25-27, 2021)

Talk on "Dictator Games" at the 2021 Australasian Meeting of the Econometric Society (July 7-9, 2021)

Talk on “Information, Feedback and Pricing Rule Effects in the Continuous Double Auction: an Experimental Perspective” at the 1st EUI workshop on "Pricing Technologies and their Economic and Social Consequences" (March 25-26, 2021)

Teaching/Projects/Other Activities


Editorial Work: Games (Section Editor-in-Chief), Journal of Mathematical Sociology (Co-Editor)

Co-Director: Zurich Center for Market Design (https://www.marketdesign.uzh.ch/en.html)

Regular reviewer at (very many) journals...

Classroom Games: More information

Peer Review Online: More information

Game Theory Online: More information



Networks

Center for Research in Sports Administration
Zurich Market Design
The Replication Network
DVSN.app
Visitor Program
Open Science
Other Interests