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RESEARCH ADVISORY BOARD

The Research Advisory Board acts as an advisory body to the RWI. Its members comprise at least six and at most twelve internationally renowned external scientists or other experts in the Institute's field of research. The Board has the following tasks:

  • Scientific monitoring, consulting and evaluation of the Institute's work. 
  • Evaluation of the research program of the Institute 
  • Report on the evaluation to the Board of Directors 
  • Promotion of the work of the Institute. 

Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schneider
Bergische Universität Wuppertal (Vorsitzende)
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2015; Chair since 2015

Since 2004 Kerstin Schneider holds the chair of Public Economics and Business Taxation at the Bergische University of Wuppertal und is the director of the WIB (Wuppertal Research Institute for the Economics of Education). She received her PhD in 1993 from the University of Georgia and qualified as professor at the University of Dortmund in 2001. Afterwards she was senior lecturer at the chair of Public Economics of Wolfram Richter at the University of Dortmund. Her research focuses on education economics and taxation and has been published in high-quality peer-reviewed journals such as the European Economic Review, the Journal of the European Economic Association or the Journal of Population Economics. Kerstin Schneider was board member of the Verein für Socialpolitik until 2010 and of the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF) until 2015.


Prof. Dr. Gabriel Ahlfeldt
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2019

Since 2013 Gabriel Ahlfedt is Associate Professor of Urban Economics and Land Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He has studied in Freiburg, Madrid and Berlin and received his PhD from the University of Hamburg in 2008. In 2009 he joined the LSE as an Assistant Professor. His research interests concern the effects of various agglomeration forces on the spatial distribution of economic activity as well as the impact of spatial policies on local house prices, labor markets, political preferences and urban structure. Gabriel Ahlfedt’s work has been published in various peer-reviewed journals such as Econometrica, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Urban Economics or Regional Science and Urban Economics. He is editor of Regional Science and Urban Economics and an Affiliate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), the Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC), and the CESifo.


Prof. Dr. Thiess Büttner
Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2019

Thiess Buettner holds the chair of Public Finance at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. He studied economics and international business in Göttingen and Konstanz and obtained his PhD from the University of Constance in 1997. Afterwards, he worked as a researcher at the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW), where he later became head of the division for Corporate Taxation and Public Finance Research. After his habilitation at the University of Mannheim he became CESifo professor of public finance at LMU Munich and head of the Public Sector department at the ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich. From 2015 to 2018, Thiess Büttner chaired the Academic Advisory Board at the Federal Ministry of Finance. Since 2018 he chairs the Independent Advisory Board of the Stability Council, a member of the European Network of Independent Fiscal Institutions EUNIFI. His research focuses on taxation, tax competition and fiscal federalism. The results of his work have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Urban Economics and World Development.


Prof. Dr. Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz
Technische Universität Wien
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2015

Since 2012 Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz has been head of the Institute for Mathematical Methods in Economics at the Vienna University of Technology, which was renamed in 2015 to the Institute for Stochastics and Mathematical Methods in Economics due to a merger with another institute. Since 2008 she is professor for Mathematical Economics at the Vienna University of Technology. She received her PhD in 1992 from the Vienna University of Technology and obtained the venia legendi in 1998. Before coming back to Vienna in 2003 to work at the Vienna Institute of Demography as deputy director and head of the research group on Population Economics, she worked at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock as the head of the research group on Population, Economy and Environment for five years. Her main fields of research are in the analysis of long-run population and economic development, macroeconomic consequences of an ageing population and agent-based modelling. The results of her research have been published in Demography, Journal of Economic Growth or Macroeconomic Dynamics.


Prof. Timothy W. Guinnane, Ph.D.,
Universität Yale
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2015

Timothy Guinnane teaches Economics at Yale University since 1993: initially, he was assistant professor (1993-1996), afterwards associate professor (1996-1999) and from 1999 to 2006 he was professor of Economics. Since 2006 he is Philip Golden Bartlett professor of Economics History at the Department of Economics. He received his PhD from Stanford University and worked as assistant professor at Princeton University, before he came to Yale University in 1993. His research interests are in the field of economic history, in particular demographic and financial history of Western Europe, with a special focus on European fertility transition, social insurance and credit cooperatives. Timothy Guinanne published his research in high-quality peer-reviewed journals such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Literature and the Economic History Review. From 2007 to 2010 he was member of the board of directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research and from 2009 to 2014 member of the advisory board of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Since 2012 he is a member of the advisory board of the Institut für Bankhistorische Forschung.


Prof. Dr. Isabel Günther
ETH Zürich
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2018

Isabel Günther is Professor of Development Economics at ETH Zurich (www.dec.ethz.ch). She is the academic director of the NADEL Center for Development and Cooperation (www.nadel.ethz.ch) and ETH for Development (www.ethz.eth4d.ch). Moreover, she is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ethics Committee of ETH Zurich and the Commission for Global Research Partnerships of the Swiss Academy of Sciences.

Through her research and teaching, she aims to help address global inequalities and strengthen the collaboration between science, politics, and the society. She has conducted research and taught classes in Benin, Burkina Faso, Germany, France, Ghana, Kenya, Switzerland, South Africa, Uganda, and the United States.


Prof. Dr. Annika Herr
Director of the Institute for Health Economics, Leibniz Universität Hannover
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2022

Annika Herr is professor of Health Economics and Director of the Institute of Health Economics at Leibniz University Hanover. After her diploma in economics and business administration at Dortmund University, she received her PhD at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2009. During her PhD studies, she was a member of the Ruhr Graduate School in Economics. After her PhD, she was a postdoc and later assistant professor at the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, where she received her habilitation in 2018. Her research focusses on competition and regulation in health care markets as well as organ donation. She has published in several renowned journals, such as the Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and Economic Inquiry. Since 2021, she is Vice Chair of the German Health Economics Association (dggö) and Speaker of the Center for Health Economics Research Hanover (CHERH). Moreover, she is member of the standing field committee for Health Economics of the German Economic Association (Verein für Socialpolitik).


Prof. Dr. Philip Jung
TU Dortmund
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2019

Philip Jung is Professor for Macroeconmics at TU Dortmund. He studied history and economics at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. In 2001 and 2002 he attended the Swiss Program for Beginning Doctoral Students at the Study Center Gerzensee and subsequently spent one year at Penn-University. In 2006 he completed his doctoral studies at the University of Frankfurt. Philip Jung then worked as a Post-Doc at the University of Amsterdam and was an Assistant Professor in Mannheim from 2009 to 2012. Between 2012 and 2014 he held a position as Professor in Bonn. His research focuses on the economic and social impacts of frictions in labor markets, the application of search-and-matching-theory on the explanation of inequality and uncertainty in income and consumption as well as the modelling, simulation and estimation of dynamic structural equilibrium models. His work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals such as American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Journal of the European Economic Association and The Economic Journal.


Prof. Dr. Krisztina Kis-Katos
Universität Göttingen
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2019

Krisztina Kis-Katos is Professor for International Economic Policy at the University of Göttingen. After her studies in Szeged and Konstanz she attended the Swiss Doctoral Program at the Study Center Gerzensee. In 2010, she received her PhD from the University of Freiburg. Her research focuses on applied development economics, political economy and applied microeconometrics. Her work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals such as IMF Economic Review, European Economic Review, Journal of Development Economics and Journal of Human Resources. Krisztina Kis-Katos is a research fellow of IZA and RWI and a member of the Development economics group of Verein für Socialpolitik.


Prof. Dr. Robert Nuscheler
Holder of the Chair of Finance, in particular Health Economics at the University of Augsburg
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2022

Robert Nuscheler is a professor of Public Economics and Health Economics at the University of Augsburg. After his diploma in economics, he received his PhD in economics in 2003, both at Free University of Berlin. During and after his PhD studies, he worked as a research fellow at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). Subsequently, he worked as postdoctoral research fellow at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and as assistant professor at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His research interests lie in the areas of health economics, public economics, political economy, industrial organization as well as experimental economics and applied microeconometrics. He has published in several renowned journals, such as the Journal of Health Economics,European Economic Review, and Health Economics. He is member of the academic advisory board for the advancement of the risk adjustment scheme (Risikostrukturausgleich) of the German Federal Office for Social Security as well as board member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Research and director of the Institute of Economics, both at the University of Augsburg. Moreover, he is associate editor of the Journal of Health Economics and former member of the board of the German Society of Health Economics.


Prof. Dr. Martin Quaas
Universität Leipzig/Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung (iDiv)
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2019

Martin Quaas is Professor for Biodiversity Economics at the University of Leipzig and head of the research group “Biodiversity Economics” at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig. He studied Physics at the University of Duisburg and received his PhD in Economics from the University of Heidelberg in 2004. Afterwards he worked as a Postdoc at the Helmoltz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Tilburg University (Netherlands). From 2007 to 2010, Martin Quaas was an Assistant Professor and between 2010 and 2018 Professor of Environmental, Resource-, and Ecological Economics at the University of Kiel. His research focuses on the interactions between the economy and biodiversity. His work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals such as Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Ecological Economics and EnvironmentalandResource Economics.


Prof. Dr. Conny Wunsch
Universität Basel
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board since 2015