Hermann H. Gossen Award 2024

This year's Hermann Heinrich Gossen Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros, will be awarded to Christoph Trebesch (University of Kiel).

Every year, the Verein für Socialpolitik awards the Hermann Heinrich Gossen Prize to an economist under the age of 45 from the German-speaking world for internationally recognised research achievements. The aim of the prize is to promote the internationalisation of economics. The most important criterion for awarding the prize is publications in internationally recognised journals.

The prize is named after the Prussian lawyer Hermann Heinrich Gossen (1810-1858). With his work ‘Die Entwickelung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs, und der daraus fließenden Regeln für menschliches Handeln’, Gossen is considered one of the most important forerunners of the modern marginal utility school.

Christoph Trebesch studied economics at the FU Berlin and received his doctorate there. From 2011 to 2017, he was a junior professor at LMU Munich. Stays abroad have taken him to Harvard, Berkeley, Yale and the Chicago Fed. Since 2017, Christoph Trebesch has been Director of the ‘International Financial Markets’ research centre at the Kiel Institute and Professor of Macroeconomics at Kiel University. He received a prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant for his geoeconomic project ‘International Finance and the Great Powers, 1800-2020’ in 2023.

Christoph Trebesch is one of the most internationally cited young researchers in economics, specialising in international financial markets, macroeconomics, economic history and political economy. The list of his publications in internationally renowned A and A+ journals is long. The range of his research topics is astonishing: the effectiveness of ‘haircuts’ in debt crises, the influence of labour migration on the development of democratic structures, China as a lifeline in the global financial system or the ‘costs’ of populist regimes for the national economy. His highly regarded studies are extremely topical. Using historical economic data, patterns are identified that can help to understand and overcome current challenges.

The empirical economist was awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council in 2023. In a comprehensive research project, Christoph Trebesch will compile detailed data on international investments over a period of 200 years. The grant, entitled ‘Great.Power.Finance’, is associated with funding of two million euros over a period of five years.

‘With his scientific excellence, Christoph Trebesch is a figurehead of German cutting-edge research. His work is highly topical and helps us to better understand the rise of populist forces or the rise of China. He never tires of launching new research initiatives. He thus makes a valuable contribution to science and society,’ praises Regina T. Riphahn, Chairwoman of the Verein für Socialpolitik.