Professor Dr. Wickström was Professor of Public Economics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 1992 to 2013 and is now a guest professor at Andrássy-Universität in Budapest. Earlier, he held chairs at Johannes-Kepler-Universität in Linz, Austria, and at the University of Bergen, Norway. 

His fields of research include economics of language and evolutionary economics, welfare theory, especially economic theory of justice and policy analysis, public choice theory, as well as the theory of pension systems. 

From 2003 to 2013 he was project leader of the ISSEM and the ISSEM.

He has recently published three books on language policy together with M. Gazzola and T. Templin as well as a number of contributions to the same field in different collections. Some other representative publications are: "Decentralzation and pressure group activities" in Optimal decisions in markets and planned economices (R.E. Quant and D. Triska, Eds.), Boulder: Westview Press (1990); "Precedence, privilege, preferences, plus Pareto principle: Some examples on egalitarian ethics and economic efficiency" in Public Choice (1992); "Politically stable pay-as-you-go pension systems: Why the social insurance budget is too small in a democracy" (with Johann K. Brunner) in Journal of Economics / Zeitschrift fuer Nationaloekonomie (1993); "Equilibrium seleciton in linguistig games: Kial ni (ne) parolas esperanton?" (with Werner Gueth and Martin Strobel) in Understanding Strategic Interaction: Essays in honor of Reinhard Selten (Wulf Albers et al., Eds.), Berlin: Springer Verlag (1996); and "The use of scandals in the progress of society" (with Manfred J. Holler) in Homo oeconomicus (1999), English-only language policy: The road to provincialism?, Optimal language policy for the preservation of a minority language (with T. Templin, A. Seidel, and G. Feichtinger), Interethnic relations, informal trading networks, and social integration: Imitation, habits, and social evolution (with J. Landa), On the political economy of minority rights. Three ways to manipulate a minority: Goals, rules, and border poles, Dynamics, costs, and survival of minorities: Optimal language policies for increasing the vitality of minority languages