Ludger Wößmann

Professor, University of Munich Scholars

Ludger Woessmann is Professor of Economics at the University of Munich and Director of the ifo Center for the Economics of Education. His main research interests are the determinants of long-run prosperity and of student achievement. His empirical work in the economics of education often uses international student achievement tests. Special focusses address the importance of education for economic prosperity and the importance of institutions of the school systems for efficiency and equity. His work was rewarded, among others, with the Gossen and Stolper Awards of the German Economic Association, the Young Economist Award of the European Economic Association, the EIB Prize of the European Investment Bank, and the Choppin Memorial Award of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

Woessmann studied economics at Marburg University, the University of Kent at Canterbury, and the Advanced Studies Program of the Kiel Institute for World Economics, where he subsequently worked. He received his PhD from the University of Kiel. He held the 2010 National Fellowship at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and spent extended research visits at Harvard University and the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is Fellow of the International Academy of Education, Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), and the Academic Advisory Council of the German Federal Ministry of Economics, and coordinator of the European Expert Network on the Economics of Education (EENEE). He is co-editor of the Handbook of the Economics of Education and co-organizer of the annual CESifo Area Conference on the Economics of Education and held over 350 invited presentations. Among his over 300 academic publications are 90 articles in refereed journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Literature, and the Economic Journal, as well as several books.