ZEW President Wolfgang Franz Celebrates his 65th Birthday

Wolfgang Franz, president of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) and professor at the University of Mannheim, turns sixty-five on the 7th January 2009. He is known to the public as one of the five members of the German Council of Economic Experts. Since 2003 he has been a member of this body, of which he was part of before from 1994 to 1999. In 2008 he was appointed for a third term by the German Federal Government. Franz has an influence on the German economic policy both through his work in the Council of Economic Experts and his post as president at the ZEW.

Franz is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the "Innovationsrat Baden-Württemberg" (advisory board on innovation of the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg), the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences an Humanities, as well as the "Kronberger Kreis", an independent council of economic experts. Furthermore he is a senator at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In September 2003 Franz received an honorary degree from the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany, for his outstanding contributions to the theory and application in the fields of labour markets and macroeconomics, his long standing and successful leadership of the ZEW as well as his achievements in the Council of Economic Experts. In the very same year Franz was awarded an honorary degree from the Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg for his studies in the fields of empirical labour market research and macroeconomics.

His academic career began with his studies in economics at the University of Mannheim. There, he worked as a research associate and completed a doctoral degree in 1974 under Prof. Dr. Dr. hc. Heinz König with a thesis on macroeconometric analysis of the German labour market. As a research fellow Professor Franz spent two years at Harvard University and at the National Bureau of Economic Research, USA. In 1981 he habilitated at the University of Mannheim with a dissertation on the problem of youth unemployment. His academic career was extended when he was appointed professor at the University of Mainz and then offered a chair at the University of Stuttgart in 1984. In 1989 he accepted a chair at the University of Konstanz. Although he was offered a chair at the University of Zürich and Berlin Professor Franz stayed in Konstanz until April 1st, 1997, when he became the President of the Center for European Economic Research, Mannheim, and accepted a chair for economics at the University of Mannheim.

"As president, Professor Franz has given the ZEW strong impetus and has driven significant progress within the institute," says the Director for Business and Administration of the ZEW, Thomas Kohl about Franz’s achievements. In close collaboration with the Business and Administration Department under Thomas Kohl the number of employees could be increased from 88 in 1997 to currently 167 within his presidency. The percentage of female staff has steadily increased from 33 per cent in 1997 to 47 per cent at present. Furthermore, the institute’s budget has also increased within Franz’s presidency. In 2008 it was at around 15.2 million Euros. Third-party funding, which is allocated in competition with other research institutes, plays a particularly important role. In 1997, it made up a 35 per cent of the total budget, compared to 46 per cent at present. In particular the European Union and institutions promoting research, such as the German Research Foundation, are a source of third-party funding.

"Under the academic administration of Wolfgang Franz, the ZEW has not only grown quantitatively but it has also developed new areas of research," says Thomas Kohl, pointing at a further achievement of the ZEW president. In 2001, for instance, a research team was initiated at the ZEW, studying the impacts of information and communication technologies on businesses and employees. Another team of researchers dealing with growth and business cycle analysis was established in 2005. The economics of education was also newly added as a field of research, especially focussing on research concerning returns to investments in early childhood, wage dynamics and the economics of persistence. Another new field of research is competition policy, which especially deals with issues of regulation and the analysis of mergers and the M&A market.

Franz has provided empirical economic research with essential findings in the fields of labour markets and issues in macroeconomics in Germany. The approximation of the Phillips curve, the development of a macroeconomic non-equilibrium model for Germany, the analysis of unemployment and vacant jobs, the flexibility of the wage structure and the future of the wage negotiation system. On numerous occasions he has published articles on these topics in internationally acknowledged magazines and collections. Besides a wide variety of books and academic publications, his textbook "Arbeitsmarktökonomik" (the economics of the labour market), which will be released in its seventh edition in 2009, is in particular a standard reference for those involved in labour market research in Germany. Franz was also a co-editor of the international magazine Empirical Economics for a long time and edited the Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik). He is a co-organiser of the economic faculty in Ottobeuren.

The ZEW president is not only involved in the sphere of research; he also participates in vital discussions in the field of economic policies. Furthermore it is a matter of great interest to Prof. Franz to enhance the communication between research, economics and politics. The ZEW lecture series "Wirtschaftspolitik aus erster Hand" (first-hand information on the current economic policy) with a regular attendance of more than 300 participants, for example, is an instrument to achieve this goal. Prof Franz has always managed to successfully invite high-class speakers to participate. The latest example is the German Chancellor, Dr. Angela Merkel, who held a speech at the ZEW in December 2008. Franz himself also participates in this series giving each year speeches to the interested public on selected results of the annual report of the German Council of Economic Experts in Brussels, Berlin, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.