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9 Who are the economists
Germany listens to?
The social structure of influential
German economists
Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
1 Introduction: power and economics
During the last decades there was a long-lasting debate among economists and
other social scientists on the question to what extent economic thought has an
impact on the course of (economic) policy-making as well as on the society
in general (Christensen, 2017; Fourcade, 2009; Hall, 1989; Hirschman& Ber-
man, 2014). Hence, particularly economists active in policy advice and public
discourses stress the (long-term) influence of economic thought and thus partly
even develop strategies to maximize their impact. As early as in 1936, Keynes
in the “General Theory” famously stressed the importance of economic ideas,
at least in the long run: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers...
are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by
little else” (Keynes, 1936, p.383). And yet in the beginning of the 21st century
Larry Summers (2000, p.1), due to his roles as U.S. Secretary of Treasury under
Clinton and later as director of the National Economic Council under Obama,
arguably one of the politically most influential economists during the last dec-
ades, stresses, “(W)hat economists think, say, and do has profound implications
for the lives of literally billions of their fellow citizens”.
In contrast to these considerations, within the German economic debate,
around the year 2000 several economists bemoaned a decline of political and
societal influence of academic economics, partly due to ignorant politicians
and public authorities, partly also due to an alleged problematic development
of the economics discipline, that is, a sole focus on methodological rigor to
the disadvantage of political relevance (Franz, 2000; Frey, 2000b). One pos-
sible solution to overcome the perceived impotence of economic advisors was
brought forward by the then president of the German Institute for Economic
Research (DIW Berlin) Klaus Zimmermann. Zimmermann (2004, p.401)
remarked, “Given that European and German policy-makers are hesitant to
proactively seek advice, the media channel is of central importance. In my view
it is the silver bullet of policy advice”. He further argued that he requests the
DIW department heads to participate actively in public debates and the media.
The question whether and to what extent economics as a scientific disci-
pline as well as distinct economists have a political and societal impact is still
148 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
a highly contested issue among economists. However, during the last decades
and particularly after the recent global financial crisis, there was a lively debate
on the relationship between economics and politics. Some empirical evidence
indicates that in spite of the critique on the state of economics in the aftermath
of the crisis, economists and economic experts continue to be fairly present in
public debates. Haucap, Thomas, and Wagner (2014) for instance examined
the media presence of German (social) scientists from summer 2013 to sum-
mer 2014 and found that economists are by far the most cited scientists in
public debates. In fact, eight out of the ten scientists with the highest number
of media appearances and overall about two thirds of the scientists quoted in
opinion-forming German newspapers are economists. Haucap etal. (2014)
conclude that no other science receives by far the same amount of attention
of German policy-makers and the German media. Hence, economists seem to
have a specific access to power over the channel of public debate.
Against this backdrop, there is growing interest in the scientific discipline
of economics in other social sciences as well (see e.g. Fourcade, 2009; Leb-
aron, 2001; Maesse, 2015, 2018; Rossier et al., 2017, or Rossier& Benz in
this volume). In this context, economics is not only analyzed as the dominant
discipline within the social sciences but also often understood as a “discipline
of power” in modern societies, which produces political and economic elites
and thus has a considerable societal impact. In this vein Hirschman and Berman
(2014) stress the heterogeneous devices by which economists influence the
political process and thus policy-making. The authors dierentiate between the
professional authority of economics, the institutional positions of economists
and the establishment of a specific economic style of reasoning in political dis-
course. For them, the latter aspect especially points to the increased importance
of economic knowledge in the governance of capitalist economic systems after
World War II. In this respect Fourcade (2006, p.162) concludes, “economics
has become more central to the nation... because the nation itself has become
more economic”.
In the literature on the role of economists in public debates, several authors
stress the specific role of highly visible “public economists” in the sense of
“public intellectuals”, who are capable to “make a public intervention” (Eyal&
Buchholz, 2010, p.210), because they are very active and influential in political
and public debates. Lebaron (2006) as well as Maesse (2015) thus introduce a
Bourdieusian approach, which stresses the compound role of economic experts
within a trans-epistemic field of academia, media, politics and business. Thus,
the insignia of symbolic capital for being an economist, for instance the desig-
nation “Professor of Economics”, confers power on academic economists and
therefore increases their potential impact in political and public debates. The
authors thus conclude that “economists are the producers of economic beliefs”
(Lebaron, 2001, p.91) and that “economic knowledge... has a special status
as a cultural resource for discursive interventions into the political and the eco-
nomic world” (Maesse, 2015, p.286).
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 149
Against the backdrop of recent work on the political and societal impact of
economics and distinct economists, respectively, this chapter aims to examine
individual, research and institutional characteristics as well as established pro-
fessional networks of what are considered to be “influential economists” in
Germany. In providing an actor-based empirical analysis, we contribute to the
current debate on the political and societal influence of economists by elabo-
rating on the significance of biographical features and professional networks
as conditions for becoming an influential economist. In doing so, we further
elaborate on channels of influence or potential power devices, which structure
the trans-epistemic field of economic expertise in Germany.
The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows: In section2 we relate
our work to current debates on the state of and recent trends within Ger-
man economics, and on existing power devices concerning economic policy-
making. Section3 introduces our methodological approach, which is based
on biographical and bibliometric research as well as social network analysis. In
section4 we provide our main empirical results. At first, we describe common
individual, research and institutional patterns of influential economists in Ger-
many. After that we then dive deeper into their institutional and co-authorship
networks in order to examine the significance of existing power structures
within German economics. In the final section we sum up our main contribu-
tion and oer some concluding remarks.
2 On the current state of economics in Germany
2.1 The special role of ordoliberalism in German economic
policy-making
In the European and particularly German context, which is of interest in this
chapter, there is a long tradition of politically influential and thus powerful
economists and professional networks dating back to the immediate postwar
period. In the German Federal Republic in the first decades after World War
II, economists played crucial roles in policy-making at several levels. First, pro-
fessors of economics held powerful political positions; for instance, Ludwig
Erhard as chancellor and Alfred Müller-Armack and also Karl Schiller as influ-
ential ministers.1 Second, economic advisors, mainly from the ordoliberal or
German neoliberal school of economic thought,2 were directly involved in the
foundation of the German Federal Republic (e.g. the currency reform of 1949).
Third, a network of ordoliberal economists in close collaboration with employ-
ers’ associations served as promoter of the formative vision of “Soziale Mark-
twirtschaft” (social market economy) in the years of the “German economic
miracle” (Ötsch, Pühringer,& Hirte, 2017; Ptak, 2004). Against this backdrop,
many scholars stress the formative impact of ordoliberalism on German and
partly also European economic policy-making (Biebricher, 2018; Campbell&
Pedersen, 2014; Lechevalier, 2015). Other scholars show the strong dominance
150 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
of German neoliberal networks among economists with significant influence
on media and policy advice in postwar Germany and highlight trajectories of
their persistence up to today (Ptak, 2009; Pühringer, 2018).
Particularly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and during the
debates on European crisis policies ordoliberalism re-entered public as well as
academic debates, when the German economics discipline was heavily criti-
cized for its alleged conservatism and its support for austerity policies. Stiglitz,
for instance, stressed the extraordinary position of German economics as
follows:
What is very clearly true... is that German economics is dierent from
economics everywhere else in the world. They still believe in austerity
even though the IMF, which is not a left-wing organization, has said aus-
terity doesn’t work. (Joseph E. Stiglitz, cited in: Phillips, 2016)
In a similar vein, several scholars stressed idiosyncrasies of “German eco-
nomics” such as (i) a traditional conservative approach concerning economic
policy-making (Münchau, 2014; Phillips, 2016), (ii) the central role of institu-
tionalized economic policy advice (Campbell &Pedersen, 2014; Pühringer&
Griesser, 2020) as well as (iii) the existence of an ordoliberal power structure
organized around think tanks supported by German employer associations
(Flickenschild& Afonso, 2018; Ötsch etal., 2017). In the course of the debate
on German economics induced by criticism mainly from U.S. and U.K. econ-
omists, for instance Burda, then president of the Verein für Socialpolitik (German
Economic Association), defended German economists and in particular the
members of the German Council of Economic Experts, the main economic
policy advice body in Germany, publicly also referred to as “economic wise
men”. In doing so, Burda explicitly stressed the international orientation of this
important policy advisers and even “vouch(es) for their mainstream academic
views” (Burda, 2015). Indeed, recent surveys among German economists
report a rising trend of internationalization and Americanization of German
economics (Fricke, 2015) similar to other countries and disciplines (Fourcade,
2006; Rossier& Bühlmann, 2018).
Hence, in regard to the European debt crisis the majority of German econo-
mists were against stark austerity measures imposed on Southern European
countries and thus were opposing the position of the German government
as well as of leading (and publicly influential) orthodox economists (Fricke,
2015). In general, however, there seems to be a remarkable dierence between
the majority of comparably younger, internationally oriented economists and
older, politically and publicly influential ordoliberals (see also Grimm etal.,
2018, on this issue).
A similar example of such a tension among German economists also became
obvious during what was later called the Cologne dispute over method (Kölner
Methodenstreit) in 2009 (Caspari& Schefold, 2011). The conflict emerged after
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 151
the University of Cologne decided to change the denomination of professo-
rial chairs from “economic policy” to “modern macroeconomics”, which also
marked a shift from traditional ordoliberal policy-orientation to quantitative
formal mathematical methods. Therefore, the dispute was again between older
economists supporting a petition entitled “Save economic policy at the uni-
versities” and younger, internationally oriented supporters of a petition named
“Rebuild economics according to international standards”.
2.2 Top-level research vs. policy advice?
A further debate among economists revolves around the question whether
there is a cleavage within the German economics profession between top-
level research and policy advice. Haucap and Mödl (2013) argue that there
exists a pronounced division of labor between economists focusing on top-level
research on the one hand and economists engaging in policy advice on the
other hand. Furthermore, they suggest that the nature of this division of labor is
rather substitutive than complementary as economists normally do not engage
in both activities during the same period of time. Furthermore, the authors
indicate that the view of a temporal division of labor by individual economists,
which means focusing at first on top-level research and afterwards on policy
advice, is also misleading. There is not sucient evidence in support of this
hypothesis. Schmidt (2013), president of the Leibniz Institute for Economic
Research and chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts, in con-
trast, opposes this cleavage view. He indicates that leading public economists
in Germany usually are not only excellently qualified, but a majority also pub-
lishes in top-tier economic journals. Hence, it is somehow misleading to focus
solely on research rankings to evaluate economists’ research skills.
3 Data and methodological approach
On a methodological level, we combine biographical and bibliometric research
with social network analysis. We make use of the impact ranking of the Ger-
man newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) published yearly since
2013, which consists of an integrated overall ranking and three sub-rankings,
each of which represents one essential pillar of economists’ “influence”: (i) a
research ranking reflecting the impact of economists on the scientific commu-
nity, (ii) a media ranking capturing the presence of distinct economists in news-
papers, magazines and television, and (iii) a political impact ranking, which
represents the direct channel of influence of economists on policy-makers.3
The ranking is very popular in Germany and thus symbolically reflects the
state of economics as a powerful academic discipline. Hence, the FAZ entitles
its ranking with the statement, “The economists, the country listens to” (“Auf
diese Ökonomen hört das Land”). Against this backdrop, we first compiled a
dataset, which includes the 50 most influential economists for each category
of the FAZ ranking from the years 2015–2018.4 In doing so, in a first step
152 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
computed an average weighted impact over the years 2015–2018, which then
served as our indicator for an economist’s impact in the respective categories
(see appendix for a list of the 20 most influential economists in each category).
As a result, because a number of economists appear in more than one sub-
ranking, our overall dataset comprises 122 economists.
In a further step between March and July2019, we then collected a broad
spectrum of biographical information for each economist. Our dataset contains
a broad range of individual, research and institutional data, which we extracted
from CVs and biographical notes, publication records and bibliographic data-
bases as well as websites of institutions and governmental authorities.5 Table9.1
presents the variables collected.
In a third step, we collected bibliometric information on the co-authors for
each economist6 between August and September2019. Since there is no sin-
gle source which meets all our requirements, we combined the data extracted
from the following dierent sources: co-authors from Web of Science (two and
more joined publications), Google Scholar profiles (all co-authors mentioned),
ResearchGate (four and more) and EconLit (two and more).7 As a result, we
did collect at least one co-author for 96 economists of our dataset.
In a final step, we employed a social network analysis using the standard
software Pajek (Mrvar& Batagelj, 2016; Nooy etal., 2018) to unveil the pro-
fessional networks amongst influential economists. In doing so, we made use of
both our data on personal-institutional relations to compute a two-mode net-
work of economists and their connections to institutions, and further exploited
our bibliometric information on co-authorships to show networks of co-
authorships among influential economists in Germany.
4 The profile of economists Germany listens to
We started our evaluation with checking for overlaps between the dierent
rankings. First of all, rather surprising, there is no overlap between the top 50
economists who are part of the research and the media ranking. Consequently,
the economists, who are influential in research, dier without exception from
Table 9.1 Variables
Individual Research Institutional
Gender Research field Research institutes& academic
Current primary aliation Ordoliberal reference think tanks
Place of primary aliation Ideological& advocatory
Nationality institutions
Year of birth Public governance bodies
Place of PhD German public policy petitions
Note: The first three institutional variables contain both current and former connections.
we calculated the relative share of citations (academic ranking), quotes (public
ranking) and mentions (politics ranking) for each year. In a second step, we
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 153
those who are influential in the media. On the other hand, there is a rather
strong overlap between the politics ranking and the media ranking (21 econo-
mists, including the top three of both rankings), and a rather minor overlap
between the research ranking and politics ranking (seven economists, only two
in the top 20 of the research ranking and all of them beyond the top 30 of
the politics ranking). Thus, the research ranking unsurprisingly diers funda-
mentally from the other two “public rankings”, which in turn provides some
evidence for the argument that there seems to be a division of labor between
top-level research economists and those economists more strongly involved
in the public and political arena. By contrast, the strong overlap between the
politics and media ranking suggests that these channels of political and societal
influence are somehow connected. We assume that especially strong media
presence fosters the diusion of one’s individual economic expertise to policy-
makers. From this perspective, the media strategy of Zimmermann mentioned
in the introduction seems to be quite successful.
4.1 Personal details
An evaluation of our group of economists by gender exhibits that there exists
a massive gender bias. The overwhelming share of the economists is male with
only a few female exceptions (Table9.2). Compared to the already substantial
overall gender bias within German economics with only 26% of all researchers
at German institutions being female (Friebel& Wilhelm, 2019), the male bias
within the FAZ ranking is still extraordinarily distinct.
Analyzing the primary aliations (Table 9.3)8 indicates that almost all
research economists (48 out of 50 or 96%) have a primary university aliation,
34% of them also having a primary aliation with an– mostly economic –
research institute. Media economists and policy advice economists, on the con-
trary, have fewer primary aliations with a university (61.2% and 79.2%), but
slightly higher aliations with an (economic) research institutes (38.8% and
50%). Aunique feature of the media ranking is that financial sector econo-
mists (18.4%, four of them among the top 11 economists of the ranking) and
to a lesser degree think tank economists (8.2%, two of them among the top
ten economists) play a substantial role within the German public economic
discourse. But think tank economists also have some influence on the political
level (8.3%).
Most economists, who publicly declare their nationality, are German citi-
zens (Table9.4; 70.3%, 73.2% and 90.9%). The reasons for the lower shares
Table 9.2 Gender ratio
Gender Research Media Politics All
Female 2% 6% 10% 4.9%
Male 98% 94% 90% 95.1%
154 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
Table 9.3 Primary aliations
Category of primary aliationaResearch Media Politics All
University 96% 61.2% 79.2% 79%
(Economic) research institute 34% 38.8% 50% 37%
Financial sector - 18.4% - 7.6%
Think tank - 8.2% 8.3% 4.2%
Central bank 2% 2.1% - 1.7%
International organization - 2.1% - 0.8%
Other 4% 2.1% 4.1% 3.4%
Note: a multiple primary aliations are possible.
Table 9.4 Nationality
Nationality ResearchaMediabPoliticscAlld
German 70.3% 73.2% 90.9% 76.6%
Austrian 10.8% 2.4% 2.3% 5.3%
Swiss 13.5% 2.4% 2.3% 6.4%
British 2.7% 2.4% - 2.1%
U.S.-American - 19.5% 6.8% 9.6%
Italian 2.7% - - 1.1%
Belgian 2.7% 2.4% - 2.1%
French 2.7% 2.4% 2.3% 2.1%
Greek 2.7% - - 1.1%
Notes: a 37 economists declared their citizenship, three of them with a dual citizenship; b 41 economists,
two with a dual citizenship; c 44 economists, two with a dual citizenship; d 94 economists, six with a
dual citizenship.
of German research and media economists relative to policy economists are
dierent. In case of the research ranking, economists with Austrian or Swiss
citizenship are also quite important. This is partly due to the methodology
behind the ranking, as economists located not only at German institutions
were considered, but also at Austrian and Swiss institutions. In case of the
media ranking, a fifth of the economists has a U.S. citizenship (19.5%). That is
because “star economists” from the U.S. (e.g. Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman or
Maurice Obstfeld) have a remarkable impact on the public economic discourse
in Germany.
Inspecting the average age of the economists per ranking indicates that research
economists (57.1years) are significantly younger than media (60.4years) and,
to a lesser degree, policy advice economists (59.3years). This outcome is driven
again by the methodology behind the research ranking which is focusing only
on the research impact of the last five years. Therefore, it is easier for younger
economists to become part of the research ranking.
Examining the place of PhD (Table9.5) reveals a remarkable variety espe-
cially within the leading research economists, as 33 dierent universities con-
ferred a PhD to 47 economists, who declared their place of PhD, with the
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 155
British elite university. Contrary to research economists, the media and politics
rankings exhibit a slightly lesser variety with 43 PhDs respective to 44 PhDs
obtained from 25 respective to 28 dierent universities. Aparticularly striking
feature in contrast to the research ranking is that 13 media economists and 12
policy advice economists received their PhD from an U.S. or British elite uni-
versity. The fact that some foreign star economists appear in these rankings can
only partly explain this result, as after neglecting them nevertheless five or ten
economists are graduates of U.S. or British elite universities.
4.2 Research profile
A deeper look into the research profiles of the ranked economists (Table9.6)
reveals remarkable dierences regarding the academic field of work. In case of
research economists less than half (48%) are located in the narrower field of
economics, followed by business (34%), environmental science (8%), and math-
ematics and statistics (6%). In contrast to this distribution the overwhelming
majority of media economists and, to a lesser extent, policy advice economists
are located in the field of economics (94.9% respective to 74.1%). Regard-
ing the former, the fields of finance (7.7%) and business (5.1%) are of some
importance, and regarding the latter besides business and finance (both 6.1%),
agricultural science (8.2%) also becomes relevant.
The reasons for this varying distribution within the research ranking as well
as for its dierences to the media and politics rankings can be found in the con-
struction of the original dataset by the FAZ. In case of the research ranking, the
Web of Science database was used and obviously a rather generous definition
of economist was deployed. In contrast to that the media ranking is based on a
quite narrow definition, as the FAZ only looked for the catch phrases econo-
mist (Ökonom*) and economic researcher (Wirtschaftsforscher*) within the
media discourse. As a consequence, e.g. business economists (Betriebswirt*)
were ignored by definition.
Table 9.5 Place of PhD
ResearchaMediabPoliticscAlld
U. of Vienna 4 MIT 6 MIT 4 MIT 8
TU Berlin 3 U. of Cologne 5 U. of Cologne 4 U. of Cologne 7
U. of Bonn 3 Princeton U. 3 Princeton U. 3 U. of Kiel 7
U. of Kiel 3 U. of Kiel 3 U. of Mannheim 3 U. of Mannheim 5
U. of Zurich 3 U. of Mannheim 3
Notes: a 47 economists; b 43 economists; c 44 economists; d 109 economists.
University of Vienna at the top with four PhDs. This indicates that, in contrast
to Britain and the U.S., the research landscape is far less hierarchical (Aistleitner
etal., 2018; Fourcade, 2009) and thus a PhD from a rather small group of top-
tier universities is not mandatory to become a successful researcher. Even more
remarkable is that only one research economist got his PhD from a U.S. or
156 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
4.3 Non-university activities
In a third field of analysis we ask for the non-university activities of our ranked
economists, including potential ideological orientations and political involve-
ments. Looking at their broad non-university spectrum of activity we dier-
entiate between current and former linkages to politico-economic and public
governance institutions. In doing so, we report connections to (economic)
research institutes, think tanks and foundations on the one hand, and policy
advice and other governmental bodies, central banks and international organi-
zations on the other hand. Finally, we also screen the economists for petition-
signing activities.
Table9.7 illustrates the connections to (economic) research institutes and
academic think tanks. Our data exhibits that a great majority of the economists
within all rankings have or had an aliation with economic research institutes
from the German-speaking countries. Especially the CESifo network (34), fol-
lowed by the IZA (25), and the DIW (23) are to be highlighted. In addition,
also the British CEPR with 24 current or past connections is relevant for
economists across the rankings. Other foreign research institutes and academic
think tanks of some relevance, by contrast, are mainly linked to media and
policy advice economists. From this, we conclude that especially the leading
German economic research institutes and their networks10 are essential bio-
graphical pillars for becoming an influential economist. Our data shows that
Table 9.6 Field of research
Research fieldaResearch Media Politics All
Economics 48% 92.3% 81.6% 68.2%
Business 34% 5.1% 6.1% 18.2%
Finance 4% 7.7% 6.1% 5.5%
Agricultural science 2% - 8.2% 4.5%
Environmental science 8% 2.6% 4.1% 4.5%
Mathematics and statistics 6% - - 2.7%
Health science 4% - 4.1% 2.7%
Others 6% - 4.1% 3.6%
Notes: a multiple fields of research are possible. “Others” include gerontology, psychology, social policy
and physics.
Furthermore, we also dived deeper into the publication records of the ranked
economists to look for possible ordoliberal references in the form of at least
three publications in ordoliberal journals.9 We find that 8% of the research
economists have an ordoliberal reference in their publication record, whereas
20.8% of the media economists and 24.5% of the policy advice economists
show an ordoliberal reference. Neglecting financial sector and foreign star
economists within the media ranking, even 32.3% of media economists have a
connection to the ordoliberal research program.
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 157
72.9% and 81.6%.
The data on the linkages to ideological or advocatory think tanks, founda-
tions and institutions (Table9.8) reveals a somewhat dierent picture. While
research economists are hardly connected to these kinds of entities, media and
policy advice economists are considerably linked to ideologically driven insti-
tutions. Acloser look exhibits that institutions of the conservative, ordo- and
neoliberal spectrum are much more popular than progressive and union-linked
institutions. While on the individual level one research economist, three media
economists and 11 policy advice economists have a connection to the progres-
sive, union-linked camp, four research economists, 13 media economists and
14 policy advice economists have linkages to the conservative, neo- and ordo-
liberal camp. Hence, it is striking that especially in the media there exists an
enormous ordo- and neoliberal bias.
Our dataset exhibits that there also exist substantial connections to public
governance bodies on the (inter)national level, although unequally distributed
Table 9.7 Research institutes and academic think tanksa
Research Media Politics All
German (economic) research institutes
CESifo 16 12 20 34
IZA 14 7 12 25
DIW 9 9 13 23
IfW 4 8 5 13
ZEW 3 4 10 11
CFS Frankfurt 2 8 2 10
MPI for research on collective goods 6 2 3 8
ARGE-Instituteb- 7 7 7
RW I 3 4 6 7
IAB 2 2 2 6
MPI of economics 5 - 1 5
Reinhard Selten Institute 3 1 2 4
WZB 3 - 2 4
Foreign institutes and academic think tanks
CEPR 11 10 13 24
NBER 1 8 5 12
INET 2 5 6 8
PIIE - 5 2 5
CREMA 3 1 1 4
WIFO 2 2 2 4
Brookings Institution - 4 1 4
Hoover Institution 2 2 - 4
Notes: a at least four connections. b ARGE-Institute is not an economic research institute but serves as
a networking platform of German economic research institutes.
52% of all research economists, 60.4% of all media economists and 77.6% of
all policy advice economists have or had an aliation with them. Considering
also important foreign economic research institutes11 the share rises to 56%,
158 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
Table 9.8 Ideological or advocatory think tanks, foundations and institutionsa
Research Media Politics All
Conservative, ordo- and neoliberal
IW Köln - 6 4 7
INSM - 4 5 6
Erhard Foundation - 5 4 5
Hayek Society - 5 3 5
Herzog Institute 1 3 4 5
Kronberger Kreis - 5 4 5
Economic Council CDU - 4 5 5
Eucken Institute - 3 2 3
Naumann Foundation 1 2 2 3
NOUS - 3 2 3
Prometheus - 3 2 3
Progressive, union-linked
Böckler Foundation - 3 6 6
Ebert Foundation 1 2 5 5
Keynes Society 1 2 5 5
Non-partisan
Plenum of Economists 6 8 10 17
Denkraum Für Soziale Marktwirtschaft - 3 3 3
INET Council on the Euro Zone Crisis - 3 3 3
Group of Thirty - 3 1 3
Note: a at least three connections.
between the rankings, as illustrated in Table9.9. An institutional breakdown
exhibits, first, that regarding German governmental bodies the German Bun-
destag has with 47 by far the most individual connections, followed by the
Federal Ministry for Economic Aairs and Energy with 21 connections. The
reason for this remarkable number of connections to the Bundestag is that
committees of the Bundestag regularly invite economists to hearings as experts.
What our data also reveals is that in addition advisory councils play an important
role as mediating institutions or interfaces between the German governmental
system and the economics profession. On the international level, second, the
ranked economists are often linked to the European Commission (19) as well
as to the World Bank (18) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (17).
Finally, also central banks play a noteworthy but minor role. A breakdown
by ranking reveals that with 48 out of 49 or 98% of almost all policy advice
economists have linkages to (inter)national public governance bodies, followed
by media economists with 85.4%. Considering only German governmental
bodies (without Austria and Switzerland), a nevertheless impressive 89.8% of
all policy advice economists are connected to them. In contrast to that, due to
numerous international star economists being part of the ranking, with 41.7%
much fewer media economists are linked to the latter. Research economists, in
turn, have with 42% or 26% considerably less connections. These results, again,
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 159
Table 9.9 Governmental bodies, international organizations and central banksa
Research Media Politics All
German governmental bodies
German Bundestag 6 25 37 47
Federal Ministry for Economic Aairs and Energy 6 16 16 21
of which: Board of Economic Advisorsb5 6 9 12
German Federal Government 2 5 12 13
German Council of Economic Expertsb- 9 9 12
Federal Ministry of Finance - 4 9 10
of which: Board of Economic Advisorsb- 2 4 4
Federal Ministry of Education and Research 2 2 7 8
German Data Forum (RatSWD)b2 1 3 4
Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Aairs 1 1 4 4
of which: Rürup Commissionb1 1 4 4
Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture 1 - 3 4
Foreign and supranational governmental bodies
European Commission 6 8 13 19
European Parliament - 2 4 5
French Government - 3 3 5
Council of Economic Advisers (United States)b- 4 1 4
International organizations
World Bank 5 10 10 18
IMF 3 12 8 17
OECD 6 4 8 13
United Nations 1 4 5 7
IPCC 3 2 3 5
WEF - 3 4 5
Central banks
German Bundesbank 4 3 6 10
European Central Bank 2 5 5 9
Federal Reserve Bank of New York - 3 2 4
Notes: a at least four connections; b advisory council. Note: Only the current ministries are listed, and
individual connections to former ministries with dierent titles are assigned accordingly.
are in line with the view of a division of labor between top-level research and
policy advice within the economics profession, although indicating that the
division of labor is somewhat limited.
Finally, we review a further channel of active public policy involvement
with respect to our ranked economists. For this, we evaluate a collection of
15 German public policy petitions by economists from 1992 to 2018. Our
results show that research economists are comparatively cautious when signing
economist petitions. Twelve or 24% of them have signed at least one out of
eight public policy petitions, resulting in 20 signatures in total. In contrast to
that, media economists are more active as 17 or 35.4% have signed at least one
out of 14 petitions, 39 signatures in total. Most active by far are policy advice
economists: 27 or 55.1% have at least signed one out of 15 economist petitions,
66 signatures in total.
160 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
4.4 Professional networks among influential economists
In the previous three sections we have described existing patterns and fre-
quently occurring features for our ranked economists regarding personal
details, research profiles and connections to non-university institutions and
(inter)national public governance bodies. In a subsequent step we explicitly
intend to examine the professional networks among these economists. In a
first step, we analyze the networks on the institutional level by focusing on
connections to politico-economic think tanks, foundations and other similar
institutions as well as on signed public policy petitions. In doing so, we do not
dierentiate between the rankings. In a second step, we investigate professional
linkages by means of co-authorship data.
The whole network consists of 177 nodes, among them 78 economists and
99 institutions/petitions. The average degree is 5.3 and the overall density of
the network is 0.06. For our analysis of social structures of the institutional
networks among influential economists in Germany we applied the commu-
nity detecting algorithm Louvain Method to highlight distinct communities
in this two-mode institutional-personal network. Overall, the clustering algo-
rithm yields six clusters. Among them, as Figure9.1 illustrates, there are four
partly intertwined main clusters with a degree centrality of 57 (the “ordo-/
neoliberal cluster” A, light gray on the bottom right), 59 (the “mainstream
cluster” B, black, at the center), 22 (the “transnational economics cluster” C,
gray at the bottom left) and 25 (the “progressive cluster” D, dark gray, at the
top) connected nodes, respectively. The “progressive cluster” D is organized
around the Böckler Foundation, the Ebert Foundation and two petitions in
favor of a European Banking Union and against the German debt-brake and
thus reflects a rather progressive, Keynesian-oriented positioning. Cluster C
is organized around international institutions, encompassing international
economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman or Thomas Piketty, well-
known for their rather critical stance on German economic crisis policies (see
e.g. Rieder& Theine, 2019 for further details). The second largest cluster B
represents the German economic mainstream and is mainly organized around
the leading German economic research institutes such as the CESifo or the
IZA. The largest cluster A, in turn, represents a rather conservative, ordo-
and neoliberal economic policy orientation. This cluster is organized around
the INSM, the Erhard Foundation and the neoliberal public policy petition
“Hamburger Appell” (Funke etal., 2005), and is quite tightly connected to the
German economic mainstream (cluster B). In contrast to that, the international
cluster C and the progressive cluster D are connected to other clusters to a
much lesser extent. Hence, the network graph in Figure9.1 indicates, in line
with recent studies on German economics (see section2.1), that ordoliberal
power structures are still relevant today. First, many influential economists, who
successfully engage in public and political debates, are connected to ordo- and
neoliberal networks. Second, these economists are also tightly connected to the
German economic mainstream.
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 161
Figure 9.1 Personal-institutional network of influential economists in Germany. Nodes with only one connection are excluded. Dots represent individu-
als, circles represent institutions and triangles petitions, bold/thin lines indicate actual/former connections.
162 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
For analyzing the professional linkages among our sample by means of co-
authorships we compiled a one-mode network of personal relations. Applying
the same clustering methodology as for the institutional network analysis we
found two quite dierent results. Whereas the extent of professional networks
among media and policy advice economists are comparably low, the analysis
of co-authorship networks among research economists yields some interesting
results.
The overall co-authorship network of our sample of influential economists
consists of 299 economists, among them 64 listed in the FAZ ranking. Over-
all, our analysis reports eight clusters with at least one common co-authorship.
As already indicated, the clustering structure of the overall co-authorship net-
work among our sample of influential German economists is strongly driven
by leading research economists. For instance, the black cluster Aat the center
in Figure 9.2 connects 12 of the 64 influential economists with at least one
common co-authorship, among them ten of the top 50 research economists,
while the sum of co-authors connected in this cluster is 49. This cluster
is organized around the ETH Zurich and furthermore comprises the two
economists (Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher) leading the research ranking.
Another densely connected cluster is the agrarian economists cluster B at the
top left and institutionally based at the Thünen Institute and the University of
Göttingen. Although this cluster only comprises four influential economists
(of which only one is part of the research ranking, the other three of the poli-
tics ranking), it connects 29 co-authors, which points to a very close collabo-
ration inside the cluster. In a similar vein, the dark gray cluster C at the top
right also represents a densely connected research network at the Viennese
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences with even 39 co-authors.
The light gray cluster D at the bottom represents another research cluster in
the field of business studies. In contrast to the densely connected research
groups in the aforementioned clusters, influential economists in the catego-
ries media and politics are mostly rather loosely connected. However, as the
clustering shows particularly, politically influential economists are either con-
nected by their cooperation through economic research institutes or by joint
expert opinions and policy briefs, such as the annual report of the GCEE. To
sum up, our co-authorship network provides some empirical evidence that
there exist close professional collaborations in form of research clusters among
our sample of influential economists in Germany, especially among research
economists. Of course, these clusters are often organized around institutions
in German-speaking countries. Other ranked economists, however, are only
loosely or not at all connected to these “German” research clusters. There-
fore, we cautiously conclude that on the one hand professional collaborations
represented by common co-authorships are probably quite helpful for becom-
ing an influential research economist in Germany. On the other hand, this
factor seems to be of rather limited importance for economists with public
and political influence.
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 163
Figure 9.2 Overall co-authorship network among influential economists. Size of the nodes indicates the number of co-authorships. At least one
common co-authorship.
164 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
5 Concluding remarks
In this contribution, we employed social network analytical methods on a
unique dataset comprising biographical and bibliometric information of the
most influential economists in Germany with the aim to explore common
biographic, institutional and research patterns as well as professional networks
and thus to unveil power structures within the German economics profession.
In doing so, we made use of the FAZ ranking of economists, where influence
is separated in the fields of research, media and politics and therefore is designed
to highlight the elite segment of the economics profession in Germany.
Against this backdrop, we can draw the following main conclusions: First of
all, the segment of influential economists in Germany is almost exclusively male
and thus even more gender biased than the overall German economics profes-
sion. Second, a breakdown by ranking reveals some interesting dierences:
(i) while research economists cover a broad range of research fields, media and
policy advice economists are predominantly located in the (narrower) field
of economics; (ii) the media ranking exclusively contains a substantial num-
ber of financial sector economists as well as international “star economists”.
Third, the division of labor between top-tier research and policy advice within
the German economics profession is to some extend also reflected within the
group of influential economists. There are (i) hardly or no individual overlaps
between the research ranking and the other two rankings and (ii) while a strik-
ing majority of media and policy advice economists have connections to (inter)
national public governance bodies, only a minority of research economists are
linked to them. Fourth, although our biographical analysis is limited in scope,12
we find also some indications for internationalization within our sample. On a
personal level, 28.4% of the economists in our sample received their PhD from
a university outside the German-speaking area. Furthermore, the international
orientation is also reflected in the rather high number of connections (66 out of
119 economists or 55.5%) to research institutes, think tanks and public govern-
ance bodies located at the international (non-German-speaking) level. Fifth,
the ordoliberal bias within the German economics profession also appears in
our group of influential economists. This bias, however, is restricted to media
and policy advice economists. Aconsiderable number of them are connected
to the ordoliberal research program and/or have connections to the German
conservative, ordo- and neoliberal institutional network, which, in turn, is
closely connected to the German economic mainstream. In contrast to that,
progressive economists are far less represented in our sample, and their linkages
to the German economic mainstream are limited.
Overall, for becoming an influential economist in Germany it seems to be
helpful to be professionally associated with the leading German economic
research institutes and their networks. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that
due to the obviously less hierarchical nature of the German-speaking econom-
ics profession when compared to the U.S., a successful research economist does
not need to have a PhD from or work at a small range of top-tier universities.
Who are the economists Germany listens to? 165
Rather it seems much more eective to collaborate with other influential
research economists from the German-speaking countries. For becoming an
influential media and policy advice economist, in turn, research collaborations
seem to be less crucial. For these economists it is probably just as important to
be connected to politico-economic networks in Germany, whether they are
partisan or not. Of course, having visible linkages to governmental institutions,
especially institutionalized policy advice bodies, will in turn increase an econo-
mist’s impact on politics and the media.
To sum up, our analysis provides some evidence of common patterns and
similarities among the population of influential German economists. While we
made use of social network analysis to detect communities among our sample,
our analyses could open up a venue for further research employing quantitative
approaches such as multi-correspondence analyses (MCA) from a field theo-
retical background (see for instance Rossier& Benz in this volume).
Notes
1 For a detailed list of economic professors in political positions in Germany see Frey
(2000a).
2 To put it short, ordoliberal scholars distinguish between the ordo principle, also referred
to as an “economic constitution”, and the field of economic policy. Whereas the gov-
ernment is responsible for the overall economic order, it should at the same time avoid
intervening in the economic process itself, thereby historically opposing Keynesian-
oriented economic planning. Hence ordoliberal policies range from anti-trust legisla-
tion to austerity-oriented fiscal policies.
3 The overall ranking contains the top 100 economists, whereas each sub-ranking roughly
comprises the top 50 economists.
4 Due to a change in its ranking methodology before 2014 and as the following ranking
for 2014 is not fully publicly accessible, we start with the ranking for 2015.
5 We did not collect biographical information for three historical economists (Milton
Friedman, Friedrich A. Hayek and John M. Keynes) out of the 122 economists since
we are mainly interested in contemporary economists.
6 In doing so, we furthermore did not consider nine bank economists (Stefan Bielmeier,
Carsten Brzeski, David Folkerts-Landau, Michael Heise, Ulrich Kater, Jörg Krämer,
Holger Schmieding, Gertrud Traud and Jörg Zeuner), as they mostly have not authored
scientific publications. Furthermore, we excluded eight foreign economists mostly from
U.S. institutions (Angus Deaton, Paul Krugman, Maurice Obstfeld, Thomas Piketty,
Kenneth Rogo, Robert Shiller, Joseph Stiglitz and Lawrence Summers), as we are
mainly interested in the co-authorship networks of the economists of the German-
speaking countries.
7 Although Web of Science does contain all academic fields, it is restricted to a range of
mostly international academic journals. As a consequence, various economists especially
of the media and politics ranking are only covered insuciently due to a low number of
publications in these journals. Hence, we have supplemented the Web of Science data
on co-authors with data from other databases.
8 In all following tables and figures, the three historical economists are not considered.
9 These journals are ORDO– Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft and
Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik as well as Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik. Whereas the
first two are traditional ordoliberal journals, the latter is a prominent platform for the
promotion of ordoliberal ideas to policy-makers.
166 Stephan Pühringer and Karl M. Beyer
10 Our sample includes CESifo, DIW, HWWI, IAB, IfW, IMK, IWH, IZA, RWI, MPI,
SAFE, WZB and ZEW.
11 Our sample includes Brookings Institution, Bruegel, CEPII, CEPR, CNRS, Hoover
Institution, IFS, IIES, INET, IHS, KOF, NBER, PIIE, WIFO and WIIW.
12 We did not gather data on their whole academic career paths. Therefore, our analysis of
internationalization is quite limited.
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Appendix
Table 9.10A Average weighted impact over the years 2015–2018
FAZ media impact 2015-18 FAZ political impact 2015-18 FAZ research impact 2015-18
Rank Name Quotes* Rank Name Mentions* Rank Name Citations*
1 Hans-Werner 6.46% 1 Hans-Werner 12.00% 1 Ernst Fehr 10.77%
Sinn Sinn
2 Clemens 6.27% 2 Clemens 10.12% 2 Urs Fischbacher 5.38%
Fuest Fuest
3 Marcel 6.25% 3 Peter 5.63% 3 Didier Sornette 3.74%
Fratzscher Bofinger
4 Jrg Krämer 4.50% 4 Marcel 5.22% 4 Bruno S. Frey 3.74%
Fratzscher
5 Michael 3.60% 5 Lars Feld 4.32% 5 Michael Frese 3.56%
Hüther
6 Carsten 2.22% 6 Gustav Horn 4.14% 6 Christian Ringle 3.15%
Brzeski
7 Thomas 2.11% 7 Michael 3.58% 7 Adamantios 2.98%
Mayer Hüther Diamantopoulos
8 Thomas 1.95% 8 Rudolf 2.01% 8 Christian 2.78%
Piketty Hickel Homburg
9 Holger 1.90% 9 Folkhard 1.99% 9 Armin Falk 2.58%
Schmieding Isermeyer
10 Jörg Zeuner 1.82% 10 Justus Haucap 1.95% 10 Helmut Haberl 2.09%
11 Lars Feld 1.70% 11 Christoph 1.88% 11 Marko Sarstedt 2.05%
Schmidt
12 Peter Bofinger 1.69% 12 Thomas 1.59% 12 Fridolin 2.03%
Straubhaar Krausmann
13 Christoph 1.61% 13 Claudia 1.57% 13 Thorsten 2.01%
Schmidt Kemfert Hennig-
Thurau
14 Paul Krugman 1.52% 14 Paul 1.47% 14 Oliver Gassmann 1.89%
Krugman
15 Ferdinand 1.42% 15 Bert Rürup 1.35% 15 Reinhard Busse 1.88%
Dudenher
16 Joseph Stiglitz 1.34% 16 Martin 1.34% 16 Klaus M. 1.85%
Hellwig Schmidt
17 Stefan 1.32% 17 Achim 1.16% 17 Karl Heinz Erb 1.79%
Bielmeier Wambach
18 Ulrich Kater 1.23% 18 Thomas 1.14% 18 Axel Dreher 1.66%
Mayer
19 Gustav Horn 1.21% 19 Axel Börsch- 1.14% 19 Werner Reinartz 1.62%
Supan
20 Bert Rürup 1.12% 20 Heiner 1.06% 20 Alois Stutzer 1.59%
Flassbeck
Source: FAZ-impact rankings and own calculations
* The percentages indicate the annually weighted averages from the FAZ-rakings from 2015-2018
