about me

I am Professor for Economic and Social History at the Economics Department of the University of Hohenheim. After studies in Marburg, Berlin and Lausanne, I graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2008. Before moving to Stuttgart in 2012, I was senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective goods in Bonn.

I am engaged in several societies and organisations in my field. To name a few, I am Research Affiliate in the Economic History Programme at the CEPR, President-elect of the European Historical Economics Society, Chair of the field commitee Economic History of the Verein für Socialpolitik, Member of the Directorate Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Member of the Directorate of the Eugen-Gutmann-Gesellschaft and currently serving on the DFG Review Board Economics.

I am an empirical economist and quantitative economic historian. My research spans economic geography and financial history. The results of my work were published, among others, in lead general interest journals such as the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics and in lead field journals such as the Journal of Economic History and the Economic History Review.

In 2018, my paper “The Berlin Stock Exchange in Imperial Germany – a Market for New Technology?”(joint with Jochen Streb), won the Schmölders prize of the Verein für Socialpolitik. In 2021, Nadja Dwenger and I were awarded a prize for excellent research by the Gips Schüle Stiftung and the University of Hohenheim.

Currently, I am working on the economic relevance of savings banks for entrepreneurship, the determinants of savings behaviour, Initial public offerings in the very long run and social mobility and inequality in the German industrial sector.