Department of Economics

The Department of Economics at the University of Bonn is one of the leading research institutions in Europe. It has an outstanding reputation in the national and international scientific community and is in the forefront of modern economic science.

The Department of Economics in Bonn looks back on a tradition of excellence: In 1987, Werner Hildenbrand was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German National Science Foundation (DFG), Germany’s most prestigious research prize. In 1994, Reinhard Selten was awarded the Nobel Prize for fundamental discoveries that led to the expansion of game theory into many branches of economics. In 1997, Jürgen von Hagen received the Gossen Award given by the Verein für Socialpolitik to German speaking economists under the age of 45 whose work gained international recognition.

Today, faculty members continue to pursue cutting-edge research. Benny Moldovanu received the Gossen Award in 2004 and Armin Falk received it in 2008. Falk also obtained a 1.3 million Euro grant through the European Research Council for his work in the field of human preferences. For his outstanding research in experimental economics, Falk was awarded the Leibniz Prize, involving 2.5 million Euro in prize money, in 2009. In the same year, Benny Moldovanu obtained one of the sought-after “Advanced Investigators Grants” of the European Research Council making him the recipient of 1.1 million Euro from EU funding sources over the next five years. In 2011 Armin Falk was awarded with the Yrjö Jahnsson Award in Economics and in 2013 he received a 1.7 million Euro grant from the European Research Council for his research on morality.

Thus, the department continues to offer the opportunity to work with a distinguished faculty renowned for their contributions to current economic research. The department comprises almost 40 professors and about 50 assistants. The main research fields of faculty members include game theory, monetary and international macroeconomics, contract theory, labour economics and finance.

A recent ranking by the influential German business paper “Handelsblatt” also indicates the quality of research in the department: It ranked the Department of Economics at the University of Bonn as the leading department in Germany in terms of research productivity.

Several research centers are associated with the Department of Economics:
Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE)
Laboratory of Experimental Research in Economics
Institute on Behavior & Inequality (briq)
Hausdorff Center for Mathematics
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods (MPI)
Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI)