Students and Alumni

Find out more about our diverse student body and our ever-growing alumni network. Faculty members, consisting of top researchers from Berlin and Germany.

DIW Berlin Graduate Center doctoral students and staff

DIW Berlin Graduate Center doctoral students and staff
Photo: DIW Berlin

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Julia Baumann

Julia Baumann is a PhD student in the BSE cohort 2019.

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Sebastian Becker

Sebastian joined the Berlin School of Economics as a PhD student in 2019. He obtained a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. Degree in Economics from the University of Bonn. During his studies, he worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Applied Microeconomics and the briq Institute on Behavior and Inequality, as well as a teaching assistant at the Institute for Finance and

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Muhammed Veli Bulutay

Muhammed joined the BSE as a Ph.D. student in 2019. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in economics from Galatasaray University, he completed the interdisciplinary research master program Economics & Psychology that is co-directed by University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and University of Paris Descartes. Muhammed refers to experimental methods to investigate topics of game

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Hira Ghaffar

Hira Ghaffar is a PhD student in the BSE cohort 2019.

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Niklas Gohl

Niklas Gohl is currently a Ph.D. student at the Berlin School of Economics and the University of Potsdam. Further, he works as a research associate at the Chair of Public Economics, Fiscal and Social Policy at the University of Potsdam. Niklas studied Economics and Politics at the University of Glasgow and obtained his Master’s Degree in Public Economics at Freie Universität, Berlin. His main

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Nils Handler

Nils Handler entered the PhD in economics as part of the first cohort of the Berlin School of Economics in 2019. He has a keen interest in investigating policies aimed at decarbonizing the economy and achieving the energy transition at least cost. More broadly he seeks to understand how our social contract needs to be recalibrated in the light of the emerging green growth paradigm. Nils has

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Jonas Hannane

Jonas Hannane is currently a PhD student at the Berlin School of Economics (BSE). He obtained his master degree in economics from Ecole Polytechnique and ENSAE in Paris, and his B.Sc. in economics from LMU Munich. In his master thesis, Jonas conducted a theoretical welfare analysis of advantageous selection in natural disaster insurance markets. Before joining the BSE PhD program in 2019, he

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Viola Hilbert

Viola Hilbert is a doctoral student in the BSE cohort 2019.  

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Ju Yeong Hong

Ju Yeong Hong is a PhD student in the BSE cohort 2019.

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Mats Kröger

Mats Kröger is a current Ph.D. student at the Berlin School of Economics. He holds a M.Sc. degree in Economics from Stockholm School of Economics as well as a B.Sc. degree from Humboldt-University Berlin. During his studies he spent semesters as a visiting student at both Georgetown University and New York University. His research interests lie in the fields of energy

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Andreas Leibing

Andreas joined the BSE as a Ph.D. student in 2019. He studied Economics at the University of Göttingen, the LMU Munich and at Université Paris-Saclay, earning his M.Sc. in Economics from LMU Munich in 2019. His master thesis empirically studied the effect of recessions on high school graduate’s college enrollment decisions as well as later job market outcomes and associated

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Alice Hedda Nielsen

Hedda Nielsen is a PhD student at the Berlin School of Economics. After completing her MSc in Economics at Stockholm School of Economics in 2018, she worked as a research assistant at the Research Institute for Industrial Economics (IFN Stockholm). Hedda holds a BSc in Political Science and Economics from Lund University and spent parts of her studies at the University of California,

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Nedim Okan

Nedim Okan is a Ph.D. student at the Berlin School of Economics (BSE) and a scholarship holder at the WZB. He has a M.Sc. degree in Economics from Istanbul Bilgi University and B.A. degree in Economics from Sabanci University. Nedim has worked as a research assistant at Istanbul Bilgi University and laboratory manager at Bilgi Economics Lab of Istanbul before joining Berlin School of Economics.

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Constantin Reigber

Constantin joined the Berlin School of Economics in 2019 and is a Ph.D. candidate and research associate at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He obtained his B.Sc. in Business Administration from the Freie Universität Berlin in 2016. In his Bachelor’s Thesis, he analyzes the transition of product providers to service companies within the German wind turbine industry.

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Vanessa Schmidt

Vanessa Schmidt is currently a PhD student at the Berlin School of Economics. She studied economics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Toulouse School of Economics and Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon. Her master thesis studied the effect of sovereign debt on growth in the Eurozone. In 2019, she received a master degree from Nova School of Business and Economics and in the

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Hannah Magdalena Seidl

Hannah Seidl is currently a Ph.D. student at the BSE and is a teaching and research associate at the Chair of Macroeconomics at Freie Universität Berlin. She holds a B.A. in Social Science and a B.Sc. in Economics from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and recently earned her M.Sc. in Economics from Freie Universität Berlin. Her research interests focus on monetary economics and its

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Fabian Seyrich

Fabian Seyrich obtained his bachelor degree in Economics from the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Throughout his bachelor studies he held tutorials in Microeconomics, Intermediate Microeconomics and Mathematics for Economists. Fabian continued with the master in Economics at the Freie Universität Berlin which included an exchange semester at the University of Melbourne.

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Virginia Sondergeld

Virginia joined the Berlin School of Economics as a PhD student in 2019. She holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and a BSc in Economics and Business Administration from Goethe University, Frankfurt. During her studies, Virginia worked as a student assistant at the Chair of Applied Microeconomics and the Chair of International Economic Policy at Goethe University.

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Xi Sun

Xi Sun is a doctoral student in the BSE cohort 2019.  

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Dang Huong Tran

Dang Huong Tran joined Berlin School of Economics in 2019 as a PhD student. She earned her Bachelor degree in Business Administration from Foreign Trade University, Vietnam and her Master of Science degree in International Economics and Finance from Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. In her master’s thesis, she examines the connecting channel between housing market and

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Mara Barschkett

Mara Barschkett is a PhD student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center and a research associate at the Department of Education and Family. Her research interests are health economics, labour economics and early education as well as the intersection of those fields. Mara obtained her B.Sc. in Economics at the University of Bonn and spent one exchange year at the University of British Columbia in

Research Associate Education and Family
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Lukas Boer

Lukas Boer is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center and research associate at the department of International Economics. He holds a M.Sc. degree in Economics and Management Science from Humboldt University Berlin and a B.Sc. degree in Economics from the University of Mannheim. He also spent study semesters at the Toulouse School of Economics and Stockholm University. During his

Research Associate International Economics
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Stephanie Ettmeier

Stephanie joined the DIW Berlin and the DIW Berlin Graduate Center in October 2018. After completing her bachelor studies in Anthropology (University Leipzig) and Political Science (Sciences Po Grenoble), Stephanie discovered her interest for Economics. She holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Economics from the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. For her dissertation on monetary policy shocks she

Research Associate Macroeconomics
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Chi Hyun Kim

In October 2018, Chi Hyun joined the DIW Berlin and the DIW Berlin Graduate Center as a research associate. She obtained her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Economics at the University of Bonn. During 2015 and 2018, Chi Hyun was a research associate at the Chair of Monetary Economics at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg and the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH Halle). In the year 2017,

Research Associate Macroeconomics
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Martin Kittel

Martin Kittel is a Ph.D. candidate at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center and a research associate at the Workgroup for Infrastructure Policy, Technical Institute Berlin. Prior to academia, Martin worked with Germanwatch, a development and environmental civil society organization, focusing on energy transition cooperation in Southeast Europe. He has completed internships at the German-Australian

Ph.D. Student Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Mariza Montes de Oca León

Mariza Montes de Oca León is a is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. Her current research interests are centered around the interaction between the natural resource curse in fossil-fuel abundant economies and climate change mitigation policy. Prior to joining the Graduate Center, Mariza worked at ICAP, the International Carbon Action Partnership, focusing on emissions

Ph.D. Student Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Laura Pagenhardt

Laura joined the DIW Graduate Center in 2018 and the Forecasting and Economic Policy Department in 2019. After completing a B.Sc. Psychology at the University of Heidelberg, Laura obtained her B.Sc. Economics from the Free University Berlin, where she also worked as a research and teaching assistant at the chair of econometrics. Based on her bachelor’s dissertation, she published an

Research Associate Forecasting and Economic Policy
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Alexander Roth

Alexander is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center since October 2018. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Mannheim and his Master’s degree in economics from the University of Mannheim and the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in a joint double-degree program. Alexander’s research interests include empirical microeconomics, focusing

Ph.D. Student Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Laura Schmitz

Laura has been a doctoral student at the DIW Graduate Center since 2018 and a research assistant in the Department of Education and Family since 2019. Laura’s research interests lie in the field of educational economics, with a special focus on intergenerational mobility and the evaluation of relevant policy measures.Laura has an interdisciplinary background with degrees in European Studies,

Research Associate Education and Family
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Johannes Seebauer

Johannes Seebauer is a Ph.D. candidate at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. Following undergraduate studies in Management in Regensburg, he obtained a M.Sc. in Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he studied as a Fulbright scholar. He also holds a M.Res. in Economics from Sciences Po Paris. In his Master thesis, he used individual-level data from the Socio

Ph.D. Student German Socio-Economic Panel study
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Christina Stadler

Christina Stadler is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. Her research interests relate primarily to applied industrial organisation and competition policy. She holds a Master’s degree in Economics, specializing in Industrial Organisation, from the University of Amsterdam and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Munich (LMU Munich). In her Master&rsquo

Ph.D. Student Firms and Markets
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Jana Wittich

Jana is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. She holds two Bachelor degrees in Governance and Public Policy and European Studies from the University of Passau, with a specialization in Economics, Global Governance and Political Science. During her studies, she spent two semesters at the University of Nantes, France. Subsequently, she obtained a M.Sc. in Economics from Humboldt

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Max Diegel

Max Diegel is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center and the chair of Econometrics at Freie Universität (FU) Berlin. In June 2018 he joined the research project "Anchoring of Inflation Expectations" at Freie Universität (FU) Berlin and the team of Professor Nautz. He holds an M.Sc in Economics from FU Berlin. During his studies, Max worked as a research and

Ph.D. Student Forecasting and Economic Policy
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Björn Fischer

Björn Fischer is currently a PhD student at the DIW Graduate Center. After his studies of Politics and Economics at the University of Münster he gained his M.Sc degree in Public Economics at FU in Berlin. In his thesis he accessed the causal effect of retirement behavior on informal care provision in Germany using a fuzzy RDD design on SOEP data. During his time in Berlin he worked as a

Ph.D. Student Public Economics
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Dennis Gaus

Dennis Gaus is a PhD student at the DIW Graduate Center since 2017. After a Bachelor in Management, he gained a M.Sc. degree in Applied Economics from the University of Innsbruck, with semesters abroad in Toronto and Taipei and internships at Deutsche Bahn AG and the DIW. In his Master thesis, written in collaboration with the transport economics department of the DIW, he assessed insufficient

Ph.D. Student Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Iuliia Grabova

Iuliia Grabova is a PhD student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in International Business Administration from the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder). In her Bachelor thesis, she analyzed the impact of globalization and the role of labor unions on the widening skill premium. Subsequently, she continued as a Master's student of Economics at the

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center; Research Associate Graduate Center
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Jana Hamdan

Jana Hamdan is a Ph.D. student at Humboldt University of Berlin and the DIW Graduate Center. Her research is focused on the impact of behavioral biases and degree of financial education on financial development. She obtained her M.Sc. in Economics at University of Potsdam. During her studies, she worked as a student research assistant for the Department of Competition and Consumers at DIW Berlin

Research Associate International Economics
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Shan Huang

Shan Huang has been a PhD student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center since 2017. She completed her undergraduate studies in Economics at Humboldt University Berlin, with a semester abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo, and holds a Master’s degree in Economics (Research Master) from Tilburg University. During her studies, she worked as a teaching assistant in the Econometrics department at

Ph.D. Student Firms and Markets
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Boryana Ilieva

Boryana Ilieva is a PhD student at the DIW Graduate Center. Her research interests lay in the fields of structural modelling, labor economics, and nonparametric microeconometrics. She holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the University Mannheim and a M.Sc. in Economics and Management Science from the Humboldt University in Berlin. In her current research project, she is discussing the long-run effects

Ph.D. Student Public Economics
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Justus Inhoffen

Justus Inhoffen is a PhD student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center since 2017. He holds a M.Sc. degree in Economics from the University of Mannheim and a B.Sc. from the University of Bonn. Prior to joining the DIW, Justus worked as a bank consultant in Frankfurt am Main. The combination with his work experience as a research assistant at the Institute for Applied Microeconomics in Bonn and the

Ph.D. Student Macroeconomics
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Jan Malek

Jan Málek is a current Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin. His research interests relate primarily to the empirical industrial organisation and competition policy. He completed his Bachelor in Economics at the Charles University in Prague, having spent one semester as a visiting student at the University of Mannheim. Jan obtained his Masters in Economics specializing in Markets and Regulation

Ph.D. Student Firms and Markets
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Stefano Piasenti

Stefano Piasenti is currently a PhD student at the DIW Graduate Center. He conducted his undergraduate studies in Economics and Management at the University of Trento and subsequently obtained his two-years master in Economics at the University of Bologna. In his master thesis he empirically studied the north-south Italian divide in a behavioural perspective analyzing differences in cooperation

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Camille Remigereau

Camille is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Graduate Center since October 2017. She graduated from the University of Mannheim with a Bachelor in Business Administration and later earned a Master in Economics and Management Science at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In her thesis she investigated the effect of gender on the competition level of the degree programs prospective students from Berlin

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
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Annekatrin Schrenker

Annekatrin Schrenker is a research associate at the Department of Public Economics at DIW Berlin. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the Free University of Berlin and the DIW Graduate Center. In her research, Annekatrin analyzes the role of wage expectations for labor supply decisions. In addition, she studies the determinants of part-time employment and the gender wage gap. Annekatrin is a

Ph.D. Student Public Economics
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Puja Singhal

Puja Singhal is a doctoral student at the Berlin School of Economics (Freie Universität Berlin & DIW Graduate Center). Prior to joining the Climate Policy department at the DIW Berlin in Autumn 2017, she has worked in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and on a field experiment with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL South Asia). Puja holds an M.Sc. in

Research Associate Climate Policy
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Matteo Targa

Matteo Targa is a PhD student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Centre. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Management at the university of Padova and subsequently he conducted his master studies in Economics at the University of Bologna. In his dissertation thesis he studied empirically the effect of immigration on the wage distribution in Italy using data from the Italian Labour

Research Associate German Socio-Economic Panel study
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Nicole Wägner

Nicole Wägner joined the DIW Berlin Graduate Center in 2017. She completed her Bachelor studies in Economics at Humboldt University of Berlin and obtained a Master’s degree in Industrial and Network Economics from Technical University Berlin. In her Master’s thesis, she analyzed the profit distribution behavior of municipally owned utilities by means of microeconometric methods. During her studies

Ph.D. Student Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Jan Berkes

Jan Berkes is a research associate at the Department of Education and Family at DIW Berlin and doctoral candidate at the Berlin School of Economics. His main research interests lie in economics of education and development economics. Jan hold a master's degree in Economics from the University of Mannheim. During his PhD he has visited the University of California in Berkeley for a research stay.

Research Associate Education and Family
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Nuria Boot

Nuria Boot is a PhD student at the DIW Graduate Center and KU Leuven. She holds an Aspirant grant from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). Her research interests relate primarily to industrial organisation, in particular collusion in financial benchmarks and firm productivity. She holds a Bachelor in Econometrics, a Master in Econometrics and a Master in Economics, specializing in Industrial

Ph.D. Student Firms and Markets
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Julio Fournier

Julio Fournier is currently a PhD student at the DIW at the graduate center. He studied business administration at the Universidad del Pacífico in Quito, Ecuador, before gaining a M.Sc degree in economics from the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Germany in 2015. His thesis assessed the economic effects of energy policy in Ecuador by means if an applied computable general equilibrium model

Scholarship Recipient Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Jan Philipp Fritsche

Jan Fritsche is a PhD fellow and research associate at DIW. His research interests are real-financial interactions, macroeconomics and financial stability. He holds a B.Sc. from the University of Augsburg, where he became a scholar of the Max Weber Program by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and the Elite Network of Bavaria. He holds a M.Sc. in Economics, specializing in macroeconomics

Research Associate Macroeconomics
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Alexander Haas

Alexander has been a PhD student at the DIW Graduate Center since September 2016. In 2014, he finished a B.Sc. degree in economics at the University of Tuebingen (Germany), having spent one year as a visiting student at Harvard University (USA). In July 2016, he graduated from the University of Oxford (UK) with a M.Phil. in Economics. Alexander’s research focuses on Macroeconomics and

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics
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Jonas Jessen

Jonas Jessen is a PhD student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center and a research associate at the Department of Education and Family. His research interests are labour economics, early education and political economy. He obtained an M.Sc in Economic Policy at University College London (UCL) and a B.Sc.in Economics at Humboldt University Berlin. During his studies he worked as a student research

Research Associate Education and Family
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Tobias König

Tobias König is currently a PhD student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. He conducted his undergraduate studies in economics in Berlin and Groningen, thereafter he obtained his master’s degree in economics from Humboldt University Berlin in 2016. In his master’s thesis he investigated the interaction of financial frictions and frictions on the labor markets in a new-Keynesian

Ph.D. Student Macroeconomics
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Alejandro Sarmiento

Luis Alejandro Sarmiento Abogado is a Phd student at the graduate center of the German Institute of Economic Research. He obtained his master degree in economics and management science at the Humboldt University of Berlin where, in his dissertation thesis he made a general assessment of the electric sector in Mexico through the use of multivariate time series techniques. His current research

Research Associate Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Felicitas Schikora

Felicitas Schikora is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Graduate Center in Berlin. She began her academic career with an interdisciplinary Bachelor’s program (Governance and Public Policy, Economics as major subject) at the University of Passau. Subsequently, she stayed at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and the University of Connecticut (UConn), United States, for her Master’s

Research Associate German Socio-Economic Panel study
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Jan Stede

Jan Stede is a research associate in the Climate Policy Department and Ph.D. candidate at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. His research interests lie in energy efficiency in industry and buildings (e.g. energy efficiency networks, market-based instruments and energy services), demand response and the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). Jan has studied the MSc Industrial and Network Economics with

Research Associate Climate Policy
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Patrick Burauel

Patrick Burauel joined the DIW Berlin Graduate Center in 2015 and is now research fellow at the SOEP. Patrick studied economics at an undergraduate level at University Maastricht with an exchange semester in Hong Kong. In 2015 he graduated with a Master’s degree from Paris School of Economics and Ecole Polytechnique. In his Master’s thesis he analyzed the evolution of inequality of

Research Associate German Socio-Economic Panel study
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Daniel Graeber

Daniel Graeber is currently a doctoral researcher at the DIW Graduate Center and the SOEP. His primary interested is centered on the socioeconomic determinants of health, mental health in particular. Daniel received his B.A. in Socioeconomics with a major in Economics in Hamburg and his M.Sc. in Quantitative Economics from Kiel. During his studies, he was a research assistant for Professor James

Ph.D. Student German Socio-Economic Panel study
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Martin Ignacio Harding

Martin is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center since September 2015. He studied economics at Universidad de Chile in Santiago, before obtaining his master’s degree in economics from the University of Mannheim and the Université Libre de Bruxelles in a double-degree program. His main fields of interest are macroeconomics, monetary economics, business cycle analysis and its interplay

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics
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Sven Hartjenstein

Before joining the DIW Graduate Center in 2015, Sven Hartjenstein studied Economics at the FU Berlin. Therein he focused on Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy, and Time Series Analysis. In the course of his master thesis and internships he employed DSGE models to study endogenous growth and unconventional monetary policy. During his studies he worked as a teaching assistant at the chair of

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics
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Melanie Koch

Melanie is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center and research associate at the department of International Economics. Since 2017, she is also a scholar of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. She obtained her master’s degree in economics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2014. During her studies, Melanie worked as a student research assistant at the German Socio-Economic Panel at the DIW.

Research Associate International Economics
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Catalina Martinez Hernandez

Catalina obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico. In her Bachelor’s thesis she did a simulation analysis of spurious regressions for long-memory processes and an application to the Sea Level-Temperature relationship obtaining a Cum Laude distinction. The latter work yielded into her first publication (coauthor). She completed her Master

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics
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Melissa Newham

Melissa Newham is a PhD student at KU Leuven and the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. Her research interests relate primarily to empirical industrial organisation and competition policy. She completed her Bachelor in Economics, Politics and Philosophy at the University of Cape Town and her Masters in Economics specializing in Industrial Organisation, Regulation and Competition Policy at the University

Ph.D. Student Firms and Markets
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Julia Rechlitz

Julia Rechlitz is a PhD student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. She completed her studies in the master of industrial and network economics at the TU Berlin in 2015. She focused on applied microeconomics and energy economics. In her master’s thesis she analyzed the efficiency of German distribution system operators with respect to their ownership structure. Furthermore, she gained experience as

Ph.D. Student Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Maximilian Schäfer

Maximilian Schäfer is a Ph.D. candidate at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. He studied Economics at the universities in Mannheim and Bonn. From 2016 to 2017, he was an intern at the Chief Economist Team in DG COMP at the European Commission. His dissertation focusses on the impact of digitization on competition policy matters. In his job market paper, he empirically assesses the impact of Big

Ph.D. Student Firms and Markets
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Renke Schmacker

Renke Schmacker is currently a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. He studied Economics, Business Psychology and Political Science in Berlin, Copenhagen and Lüneburg. In 2015 he obtained his Master's degree in Economics from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. During his studies he worked as a student research assistant in the Market Behavior unit at the Berlin Social Science

Ph.D. Student Public Economics
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Kevin Tran

Kevin Tran undertook undergraduate studies in Business Administration at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin with a semester abroad at ESCP Europe in Paris. Further, he obtained his Master’s degree in Economics and Management Science from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He worked as a teaching assistant at the Institute of Accounting and Auditing at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and interned at the

Ph.D. Student Firms and Markets
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Marica Valente

Marica Valente is a PhD student at DIW Graduate Center of Berlin. She obtained her Master degree in Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), where she majored in Environmental and Resource Economics. She did internships at the Ifo Center for Energy, Climate and Exhaustible Resources in Munich, and World Health Organization (WHO), and she was visiting scholar at the Universat Autònoma

Ph.D. Student Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Aline Zucco

Aline Zucco joined the Graduate Center in 2015. She received her Master’s degree in Economics from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. In her master’s thesis she analyzed the wage loss after birth-related career interruptions in male and female dominated occupations. During her studies she did internships at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the DIW

Ph.D. Student Gender Economics
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Niels Aka

As a doctoral student at DIW Berlin, Niels Aka studies the role that model uncertainty plays for economic forecasts and policy conclusions. These conclusions are drawn from the analyses of economic time series. As a research and teaching assistant at the DIW Graduate Center, he has taught econometrics, organised research seminars and supported the development of the Graduate Center as a member

Ph.D. Student Forecasting and Economic Policy; Ph.D. Student Forecasting and Economic Policy
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Maximilian Bach

Maximilian Bach is currently a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. He obtained his Master’s degree in Economic and Financial Research with a specialization in labor economics from Maastricht University. In his Master’s thesis he empirically studied the impact of personality traits on wages in Germany. During his studies he worked as a research assistant for Prof. Dr.

Ph.D. Student Education and Family
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Stefan Gebauer

Stefan Gebauer is a Ph.D. candidate at the DIW Graduate Center and a research associate at the Department for Forecasting and Economic Policy at DIW Berlin. In the economic forecasting exercise, he evaluates the economic development in the euro area and in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, he supports the development of the department's model infrastructure, in particular with respect to

Research Associate Forecasting and Economic Policy
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Sandra Pasch

Before she joined the DIW Berlin Graduate Center in October 2014, Sandra Pasch studied Economics at Freie Universität Berlin with a focus on macroeconomics. In her Master’s thesis, she modelled a fiscal devaluation in a three-country DSGE model. During her studies, Sandra worked as a student assistant at the chair of Monetary Economics, the chair of Applied Statistics and the chair of

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics
Person

Fabian Stöckl

Fabian Stöckl has joined the DIW Graduate Center as a Ph.D. student in October 2014. He holds a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Munich (LMU). During his studies Fabian specialized in macroeconomics with particular focus on Growth, New Keynesian Economics and International Finance. His research interests lie in the field of Climate Policy and Energy Economics.

Ph.D. Student Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Pablo Anaya

Prior to joining the DIW Graduate Center in 2013, Pablo studied economics at the Freie Universität Berlin with a focus on macroeconomics and econometrics. In his Master's thesis, he empirically analyzed the sustainability of public debt in the United States. During his studies, Pablo worked as a student research and teaching assistant at the chair of econometrics.

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics
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Caterina Forti Grazzini

Caterina Forti Grazzini is a PhD candidate at Freie Universität Berlin and a Research Associate in the Macro Department. She holds a Bachelor and a Master in Economics from Bocconi University (Milan, Italy). During her PhD she took part in the Fund Internship Programme of the International Monetary Fund (Finance Department) and in the Summer Graduate Programme of the European Central Bank

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics
Person

Katharina Lehmann-Uschner

Katharina Lehmann-Uschner is a development economist in the World Economy Department. Her research focuses on questions at the intersection of climate change and development applying rigorous microeconometric techniques. In particular, she is interested in the consequences of extreme weather events for households in developing countries. In addition, she analyzes adaptation and coping strategies –

Research Associate International Economics
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Pauline Affeldt

Pauline Affeldt is Research Associate in the Department Firms and Markets at the DIW Berlin and at the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin. She is also Fellow at the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP). Her research interests are in applied econometrics in the fields of industrial organization, competition policy, and regulation. Pauline Affeldt received her PhD in August 2019 from

Research Associate Firms and Markets
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Dawud Ansari

Dr Dawud Ansari is a researcher in the group for international resource markets within the Department Energy, Transportation, Environment. Dawud holds a PhD from HU Berlin, after previously studying at TU Berlin (best of his year), HU Berlin, and the Johns Hopkins University. Apart from his research at DIW Berlin, he is the director of the NGO "Energy Access and Development Program" (EADP), which

Research Associate Energy, Transportation, Environment
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Felix Arnold

Dr. Felix Arnold holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Mannheim University and a joint Master’s degree in economics and politics from Université Catholique de Louvain and Università degli studi di Milano. In January 2016, he completed his dissertation entitled "Direct Democracy, Voter Turnout and Representative Behavior: Essays in Political Economics". He is an

Ph.D. Student Public Economics
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Alexandra Avdeenko

Cohort: GC2010Research Interests: Political Economy, Development Economy, Applied EconometricsCurrent Employer: Chair of Econometrics, Department of Economics, University of MannheimDissertation Supervisors: Prof Thomas Siedler, Prof. Ronny Freier

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
Person

Nataliya Barasinska

Cohort: GC2007Research Interests: Corporate Finance, Household Finance, Credit Risk, Real Estate MarketsCurrent Employer: Deutsche BundesbankDissertation Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Dorothea Schäfer, Prof. Dr. Andreas Stephan

Research Associate Firms and Markets
Person

Julian Baumann

Cohort: GC2009Research Interests: Labour Economics, Technical ChangeDissertation Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Alexander S. Kritikos

Ph.D. Student
Person

Benjamin Beckers

Benjamin Beckers is a Ph.D. candidate at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center and joined the Macroeconomics Department as a researcher in January 2014. His research interests are on empirical macroeconomics, in particular on structural time series econometrics and forecasting. For his doctoral thesis he studies possibilities for the real-time detection of asset price bubbles and analyzes the interaction

Ph.D. Student Macroeconomics
Person

Eva M. Berger

Cohort: GC2006 Research Interests: Economics of Education, Labor Economics, Applied Microeconometrics, Behavioral Economics Current Employer: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Dissertation Supervisors: Prof. Dr. C. Katharina Spieß, Prof. Dr. Ronnie Schöb

Research Associate German Socio-Economic Panel study
Person

Veronika Bertram-Hümmer

Veronika focuses on inclusive microfinance solutions and households’ behavior under risk. In her doctoral thesis, she evaluated the impacts of  index insurance on household’s welfare and investigates risk preferences and their role on household behavior under risk. Before joining DIW, Veronika was a Carlo Schmid Fellow in the World Bank Social Development Department working on

Ph.D. Student
Person

Daniel Bierbaumer

Before joining the DIW Berlin Graduate Center in October 2013, Daniel was a student of Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). He holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics, Business & Social Sciencies and a Master's degree in Economics from WU. During his Bachelor studies he also spent an exchange term at the University of Manchester. Besides his studies, he completed

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics
Person

Christopher Kaya Boortz

Cohort: GC2012Current Employer: Free University BerlinDissertation Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Dieter Nautz

Ph.D. Student
Person

Frauke G. Braun

Cohort: GC2006Research Interests: energy economicsCurrent Employer: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and EnergySupervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian von Hirschhausen

Person

Franziska Bremus

Franziska Bremus is a Research Associate in the Department of Macroeconomics and leader of the project “European capital markets and macroeconomic stability”. After finishing her Master’s degree in economics in Tübingen and Montréal, she joined the DIW Graduate Center. During her dissertation, Franziska worked in the Departments of Forecasting and Macroeconomics. She finished her dissertation on

Research Associate Macroeconomics
Person

Martin Johannes Bruns

Martin Bruns joined the DIW Berlin Graduate Center in 2014. His research focuses on topics in Econometrics and Macroeconomics, in particular Multiple Time Series Analysis and Bayesian inference. Prior to joining the DIW he studied in Toulouse, Ottawa and Tübingen and obtained his Master's degree in 2014 from the Toulouse School of Economics and his Bachelor's degree in 2012 from the

Research Associate Forecasting and Economic Policy
Person

Georg Camehl

Georg Camehl is currently a Ph.D. student at the DIW Berlin Graduate Center. He studied economics in Mannheim and Ankara, earning his Bachelor of Science from the University of Mannheim in 2010. Afterwards he studied in the Joint Masters Program in Statistics in Berlin focusing on econometrics. During his studies he did internships at the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim and

Research Associate Education and Family
Person

Elisabeth Church

Cohort: GC2009Research Interests: Applied Panel Analyses and Interdisciplinary Research combining Economics, Psychology and the Neurosciences Supervisor: Prof. Dr. C. Katharina Spieß

Ph.D. Student Graduate Center
Person

Astrid Cullmann

Astrid Cullmann is senior researcher in the Department of firms and Market and the Department Energy, Transportation, and Environment. Her research deals with productivity and regulation of public sector firms. She focuses on municipal state-owned firms in the energy and water sector. Astrid is also Senior Lecturer at the Chair of Econometrics and Business Statistics at TU Berlin. She studied

Research Associate Firms and Markets; Research Associate Firms and Markets
Person

Sarah Dahmann

Before joining the Graduate Center in October 2011, Sarah Dahmann studied Econometrics and Operations Research in Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Singapore. She obtained her master's degree with a specialization in Econometrics in 2011 from Maastricht University. In her master thesis she examined unemployment persistence in Germany, with a particular focus on the role of unobserved heterogeneity

Scholarship Recipient German Socio-Economic Panel study
Person

Sascha Drahs

Sascha Drahs is a Ph.D. student at the DIW Graduate Center. He studied economics at Humboldt- University at Berlin and the University of California, San Diego, with a specialty in econometrics and behavioral economics. His research interests are in labor economics and behavioral economics.

Ph.D. Student Public Economics
Person

Khalid ElFayoumi

I am a PhD candidate at the Free University of Berlin and a research associate at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). My research is in the area of Macro-Finance and Bayesian Macroeconometrics, with an emphasis on the interaction between aggregate fluctuations and the cross section of heterogeneous market participants. I hold a BSc in Electrical engineering from the American

Scholarship Recipient Macroeconomics

Current Instructors and Dissertation Supervisors (2017-2019)

Pio Baake, DIW Berlin
Özlem Bedre-Defolie, ESMT Berlin
Helmut Bester, Freie Universität Berlin
Matthew Bothner, ESMT Berlin
Christoph Breunig, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Michael C. Burda, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Marco Caliendo, University of Potsdam
Francis de Vericourt, ESMT Berlin
Bernd Droge, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Tomaso Duso, DIW Berlin
Dirk Engelmann, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Bernd Fitzenberger, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Marcel Fratzscher, DIW Berlin, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Peter Haan, DIW Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin
Luke Haywood, DIW Berlin
Frank Heinemann, Technische Universität Berlin
Christian von Hirschhausen, DIW Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin
Georg Hirte, Technische Universität Dresden
Franziska Holz, DIW Berlin
Steffen Huck, Berlin Social Science Center, University College London
Claudia Kemfert, DIW Berlin, Hertie School of Governance
Daniel Kemptner, DIW Berlin
Alexander Kritikos, DIW Berlin
Alexander Kriwoluzky, DIW Berlin
Dorothea Kübler, Berlin Social Science Center, Technische Universität Berlin
Hermann Lotze-Campen, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Helmut Lütkepohl, DIW Berlin
Lukas Menkhoff, DIW Berlin
Dieter Nautz, Freie Universität Berlin
Karsten Neuhoff, DIW Berlin
Marco Runkel, Technische Universität Berlin
Carsten Schröder, DIW Berlin
Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Jo Seldeslachts, DIW Berlin
C. Katharina Spieß, DIW Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin
Roland Strausz, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Alexandra Spitz-Oener, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Mathias Trabandt, Freie Universität Berlin
Hannes Ullrich, DIW Berlin
Iman van Lelyveld, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam
Anton Velinov, DIW Berlin
Gert Wagner, DIW Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany's Advisory Board for Statistics
Stefan Wagner, ESMT Berlin
Lutz Weinke, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Georg Weizsäcker, DIW Berlin, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Lars Winkelmann, Freie Universität Berlin

Faculty of the Berlin Doctoral Program in Economics and Management Science (BDPEMS)

List of faculty members