Urs Fischbacher is the creator of Z-Tree, the most popular software for experimental economics. Urs Fischbacher is the holder of the Chair of Behavioral Economics at the Thurgau Institute of Economics.

In this interview, Urs Fischbacher recalls his background in mathematics and computers, and how this led then to his involvement with experimental economics at the University of Zürich. There, in the mid-1990s, he developed Z-Tree, at first as a software for conducting experiments for the University of Zürich he was supervising (the "Z" of Z-Tree stands for "Zürich").

The development of Z-Tree faced several challenges, in order to make it a flexible tool, accommodating different experimental settings. Urs Fischbacher recalls also the successful channels of dissemination of the software. 

The interview was conducted in 2023 by Dorian Jullien and Thomas Delcey, on behalf of the Oral Histories of Economics project.

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