Ludger Woessmann

About

Ludger Woessmann is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was a Hoover Institution National Fellow in 2010 and a Visiting Scholar in 2014 and 2018.

Woessmann is Professor of Economics at the University of Munich and Director of the ifo Center for the Economics of Education at the ifo Institute. His main research interests are the determinants of long-run prosperity and of student achievement. He uses microeconometric methods to answer applied, policy-relevant questions of the economics of education, often using international student achievement tests. Special focuses address the importance of education for economic prosperity and the importance of institutions of the school systems for efficiency and equity. His latest book, The Knowledge Capital of Nations: Education and the Economics of Growth written jointly with Hoover Fellow Eric Hanushek, identifies the close link between the skills of the people and the economic growth of the nation and shows the economic impact of high quality schools. Further research topics cover aspects of economic history, economics of religion, and the Internet.

Woessmann is Member of the International Academy of Education, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the German Academy of Science and Engineering acatech, and the Academic Advisory Council of the German Federal Ministry of Economics. He is co-editor of the Handbook of the Economics of Education. His work was rewarded, among others, with the Hermann Heinrich Gossen Award and the Gustav Stolper Award of the German Economic Association, the Young Economist Award of the European Economic Association, and the Choppin Memorial Award of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Woessmann studied economics at Marburg University and the University of Kent at Canterbury and received his PhD from the University of Kiel. He spent extended research visits at Harvard University and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Google Scholar lists over 27,000 citations to his research.