Hans-Werner Sinn

Hans -Werner Sinn ( born March 7, 1948 in Brake, Westphalia ) is a German economist, university professor and President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research. He has written several non-fiction books on economic policy issues.

Life

After studying economics at the Westfälische Wilhelms- University in Münster (Westfalen) 1967-1972 changed meaning to the University of Mannheim, where he received his doctorate in 1978 and his habilitation in 1983.

Since 1984 Sinn is Professor of Economics and Public Finance at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University in Munich. He spent two years as a professor at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. As a visiting professor, he worked at the London School of Economics and the Universities of Bergen, Stanford, Princeton and Jerusalem. He kept as still the only German Yrjö Jahnsson Lectures in Helsinki and Tinbergen Lectures in Amsterdam. Since 1988, meaning is also an honorary professor at the University of Vienna. From 1997 to 2000 he was Chairman of the Association for Social Policy and 2006-2009 President of the International Institute of Public Finance, the World Association of Financial scientists. He is also a Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge (USA).

Sense, since February 1999 President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research. Under his leadership, the Ifo Institute was in January 2010 by a service facility (facilities, predominantly scientific infrastructure related tasks ) to a research facility reconverted.

Hans -Werner Sinn was from 2000 to 2010 the Supervisory Board of HypoVereinsbank.

He lives with his wife in Gauting near Munich and has three grown children.

Research

Sense has dealt in his first academic years, especially with the economic risk theory. His 1977 and 1980 submitted published dissertation entitled "Economic decisions in uncertainty" (1980 ) was also published internationally (Economic Decisions under Uncertainty, North Holland: Amsterdam, New York and Oxford 1983). Focus of this work lay in the symbiosis of expected utility theory and axiomatic foundations of mean-variance analysis, here: the foundation of the principle of insufficient reason, in the psychological foundations of risk preference functions and especially the analysis of risk decisions with limitations of liability. According to the judgment of Martin Hellwig sense has thus anticipated the previously effective than basic movement work of Stiglitz and Weiss in 1981.

There was a larger number of works on economic theory, environmental economics and foreign trade -related issues, including work on the so -called asset approach as well as to micro-foundation of the general model of temporary equilibrium.

A special focus was on problems of longer -term economic growth. Before Abel, Blanchard and Chamley formulated sense the economic central planning model of economic growth in the tradition of Robert Solow as intertemporal general equilibrium model with decentralized optimizing actors and market clearing conditions.

In 1987, meaning analysis of the incentive effects of accelerated depreciation and the various components of capital income taxation on the intertemporal, international and inter-sectoral allocation of resources.

Economic policy positions

Meaning himself describes his economic position as ordoliberal within the meaning of Erhard and Eucken.

Shortly before the 2005 federal election, signed sense with 242 other German economists published an open call, the so-called Hamburger appeal for economic policy reforms in Germany.

Position to the euro crisis

Sense is one of the first of more than 270 economics professors who initiated one of Walter Krämer and Stefan Hoderlein (Boston ) and Manfred Deistler (Vienna) in July 2012 call signed up, who turns against a " pooling of bank debt " within the euro zone. The call was signed among others by Klaus W. Zimmermann, Bernd Raffelhüschen, Peter Bernholz, the Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Federal Ministry of Finance, Kai Konrad, Erich Streissler and former Prime Minister of Saxony Georg Milbradt. He was widely discussed and was strongly disputed by both domestic and foreign economists, also out of politics was strong criticism, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. In response to Kramer Frank Heinemann initiated together with Gerhard Illing a return call, which was signed by 220 economists, including Martin Hellwig, Beatrice Weder di Mauro and Dennis Snower. A group of seven economists to Peter Bofinger, Michael Huether and Gustav Horn published an article, which explicitly opposed the theses of the call. There was criticism that the call " full of heated rhetoric and low in factual details " was ( Barry Eichengreen ) and " too simple, clear and ideologically " (Alberto Alesina ). Against many of these allegations took Ulrich van Suntum, a signer of the call from Frank Heinemann and Gerhard Illing, Chandler 's defense. Chandler and sense defended in an article calling against criticism. They pointed in the accusation, to have spread misinformation, back and explained to advocate a banking union in the sense of a common regulation of banks. In view of the experience with previous rescue attempts, however, they feared a " misuse of the restructuring fund and deposit insurance for the pooling of depreciation losses " and referenced again in this connection on a "structural debt majority of countries in the euro bodies'.

Sense sees the cause of the European debt crisis in excessive current account deficits. As private capital have withdrawn during the crisis from the countries Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, the ECB did the central banks of these countries allowed to finance the resulting current account deficits at the expense of the Deutsche Bundesbank by printing and lending new money. In the years 2008, 2009 and 2010 were shed in this way more than 300 billion in " loans " from the Bundesbank, the central banks of these countries. These loans are recorded as Target balances in the balance sheets of central banks. Sense sees this as a bailout before the rescue, the parliaments of the past - was clamped - without your knowledge and consent.

He also urged for ending the government bond purchases by the ECB. He was one of 136 German economics professors, including Roland Vaubel, Bernd Lucke, Juergen B. Donges, Manfred JM Neumann, Georg Milbradt that shortly before the parliamentary elections in September 2013 in a call to the European Central Bank ( ECB) unlawful monetary state financing accused. The Federal Government and the German Bundestag, he accuses to have failed to have negotiated unique credit conditions for the crisis procedure. In his opinion, the European Stability Mechanism leads to the weakening of the Euro, and the exposure of European integration.

Controversies

In a commentary in the Financial Times Germany, the business journalist Mark Schieritz sense is because of his word choice effective press and public relations as " Boulevard Professor " and says that mind come forth the greater journalistic guns, the less his theories would find attention.

In October 2008, designated point in the public debate about the financial crisis German managers as scapegoats by those being sought in every crisis. In the world economic crisis of 1929 it met in Germany the Jews today be it the manager. This statement came not only with the Central Council of Jews in Germany, but also with politicians from different parties and public representatives to criticism, since the statement constituted an equation of criticism of the managers with the persecution of Jews. On the same day took back the sense of comparison. Meaning was taken from Jewish friends and colleagues opposite interpretations of the German press in protection.

As part of the European financial crisis, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble sense criticized position relative to the European rescue. So be loud Schäuble with the "authority of academic titles and scientific institutions that are subsidized with a lot of money from German taxpayers, have a special responsibility connected ". However, the calculations to Greece were " once again an example of how this responsibility is not very good justice ." In a press release, the Ifo Institute rejected the criticism and threw Schäuble right not to consider the importance of Target balances in its calculations.

Memberships

  • European Academy of Sciences and Arts (2013 )
  • Austrian Academy of Sciences of Humanities class, corresponding member (since 2012)
  • President of the World Federation of Scientists Finance 2006-2009 ( International Institute of Public Finance)
  • Charlemagne Prize Foundation, Aachen ( since 2007)
  • Fellow of the European Economic Association (EEA ) (since 2004)
  • North Rhine- Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( since 2001)
  • Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Historical and Philosophical class (since 1996)
  • Member of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Federal Ministry of Economics ( since 1989)

Awards (selection)

  • Honorary Doctorate, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management (July 2013)
  • Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economics Journalism (June 2013)
  • Whitman Lecture, Peterson Institute for International Economics ( May 2013)
  • Julian Hodge Annual Lecture ( April 2013 )
  • Chicago Booth Lecture, Scholes Forum: The Euro Crisis ( April 2013 )
  • State Medal for outstanding services to the Bavarian Economy (2012 )
  • Scope Awards Honorary Award (2012 )
  • Dinosaur of the Year (2009, negative price)

Works (selection)

  • The Marxian law of the falling rate of profit to fall. In: Journal of the whole political science. 131, 1975, pp. 646-696 pdf file
  • Economic decisions in uncertainty. Edited by JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck ), Tübingen 1980, ISBN 3-16-942702-4.
  • A Rehabilitation of the Principle of Insufficient Reason. In: Quarterly Journal of Economics. 95, 1980, pp. 493-506.
  • Economic Decisions under Uncertainty. North - Holland Publishing, Amsterdam, inter alia, 1983, ISBN 0-444-86387-7.
  • Common Property Resources, Storage Facilities and Ownership Structures: A Cournot Model of the Oil Market. In: Economica. 51, 1984, pp. 235-252.
  • Capital income taxation. An analysis of intertemporal, international and inter-sectoral allocation effects. J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck ), Tübingen 1985.
  • Capital Income Taxation and Resource Allocation. North Holland Publishing, Amsterdam / New York / Oxford / Tokyo 1987. ( Substantially revised English version of capital income taxation )
  • Cold start - Economics of German unification. Mohr- Siebeck, Tübingen 1991.
  • The New Systems Competition. Yrjö Jahnsson Lectures, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 2003.
  • Is Germany still be saved? Econ Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-430-18533-5.
  • Courage to reform. Fifty ideas for economic policy, Munich 2004.
  • The bazaar economy. Econ Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-548-36944-8.
  • The Green Paradox: A Plea for a no illusions climate policy. Econ Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-430-20062-2.
  • Risk -Taking, Limited Liability, and the Banking Crisis. Selected Reprints. ifo Institute, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88512-482-5.
  • The casino capitalism. Econ Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-430-20084-4.
  • The Target Trap - dangers for our money and our children. Hanser Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-446-43353-3.
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