A star player in his academic field
Professor Bertil Tungodden at the Department of Economics at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) turns 60 on Thursday 4 May. He is a giant in international research, deeply committed to his subject, with a unique ability to infect others with his enthusiasm.
Bertil grew up in Knarvik and graduated as a business economist at NHH in 1991. He took his doctorate here in 1995 with a dissertation on poverty and normative economics with Agnar Sandmo as his supervisor. He has been employed by NHH since 1995 and has been a professor at the Department of Economics since 2002.
Bertil is one of Norway's foremost researchers in any field. Fundamental questions of fairness and inequality are a common thread throughout his research. Not least, he tries to understand how moral motivation influences the choices people make. He studies this through controlled economic experiments – often large-scale experiments conducted in a number of different countries. Bertil personifies the two revolutions that have taken place in the field of economics in recent decades: the behavioural economics revolution, which integrates a more complex picture of human motivation and rationality, and the empirical revolution, which has brought increased use of experimental methods.
Bertil regularly publishes in leading scientific journals and has received numerous national and international awards for his research. He has received the European Research Council's Advanced Grant and is an Einstein Visiting Fellow at Humboldt University. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and received NHH's honorary award for outstanding research in 2017.
Bertil is an entrepreneur and a builder of communities. He established the research group The Choice Lab at NHH and is currently head of the research centre FAIR (Centre for Experimental Research on Fairness, Inequality and Rationality). The centre has been granted centre for excellence status by the Research Council of Norway. Under his leadership, FAIR has become a leading research community in international research on issues of fairness and inequality in society.
With his commitment to the subject, it comes as no surprise that Bertil is also a fantastic lecturer. He was the very deserving winner of NHH students' Bronze Sponge, NHH's award for excellence in teaching, and the national award for outstanding quality in teaching.
Bertil is a wonderful person, friend, and colleague. He has a blazing intellect, infectious enthusiasm, and an inspiring level of ambition in everything he does. In the field of economics, he is an international star; for NHH, he is a crucial builder of communities; for his friends and colleagues, he is an endless source of joy and inspiration – and for Bergen's football club Brann, he is an enthusiastic supporter.
Professor Kurt Brekke (NHH), Professor Alexander W. Cappelen (NHH) and Professor Kalle Moene (UiO).