Department of Economics

Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences (WiSo Faculty)

Welcome to the Department of Economics at the University of Cologne

The Department of Economics is the largest department within the WiSo Faculty, with more than 20 senior faculty members and many more junior faculty, post-docs, and doctoral students in their research teams. It ranks among the top institutions in economic research in Germany and Europe and currently hosts four ERC grant holders and the most research-intensive economist under the age of 40 in the German-speaking world, Christopher Roth.

In 2019, the Universities of Cologne and Bonn launched ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy, a joint initiative to advance the analysis of markets and public policy in response to major societal and technological challenges, such as digitalization, global financial crises, rising inequality, political polarization, and climate change. ECONtribute is the only Cluster of Excellence in Economics and related disciplines funded under the German Excellence Strategy.

The Center for Social and Economic Behavior (C-SEB) at the University of Cologne brings together Cologne-based researchers and international colleagues from economics, management science, and psychology who investigate the fundamental principles and behavioral mechanisms that affect social and economic behavior.

The department is also home to three leading research institutes that conduct high-level, policy-oriented applied research and foster knowledge transfer:

The Department of Economics collaborates closely with other departments within the WiSo Faculty, including Econometrics and Statistics, Corporate Development, Political Science, Sociology, Accounting and Taxation, fostering interdisciplinary research and teaching.

Our research strengths are an integral focus of our teaching concept: in our Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD programmes in economics, in cross-disciplinary programmes offered by the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Science, and beyond. We establish a friendly, supportive, and open environment that enables discussion, collaboration, reflection and a hands-on engagement with research at the different stages of learning, while providing rigorous training in all areas of economics.