The Cläre Tisch Prize commemorates the economist Cläre Tisch (1907–1941), whose scholarly work and life are closely connected to the University of Bonn. Tisch came to Bonn in 1926 to study economics and completed her doctorate under Joseph A. Schumpeter. Her dissertation made a significant contribution to one of the defining economic debates of its time—the question of whether a centrally planned economy could allocate scarce resources efficiently—and attracted international attention, including from Friedrich A. von Hayek and Schumpeter himself. Despite this remarkable achievement, her promising academic career was cut short by Nazi persecution. As a Jewish scholar, she was forced from academia and was deported to Minsk, where she was murdered in 1941.
By naming the prize in her honor, the Department of Economics and the BGSE celebrate academic excellence while remembering a scholar whose contributions deserve lasting recognition and whose life reminds us of the importance of academic freedom, openness, and responsibility.
Christina Brinkmann will give a short talk on her award-winning research. The Manchot Lecture will then be delivered by Professor Melissa Dell, Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics at Harvard University.
Christina Brinkmann is honored for her dissertation "Essays on Financial and Labor Market Institutions". She received her doctorate in 2025 under the supervision of Farzad Saidi and Moritz Kuhn. Christina Brinkmann is currently Assistant Professor of Finance at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University. The selection committee was impressed by the exceptional scholarly quality, methodological breadth, and original contribution of her work. From a modern empirical perspective, the dissertation examines how institutional frameworks shape economic decisions and how these effects translate into real economic outcomes.