Ronnie Schöb

Ronnie Schöb is a German economist and Professor of International Public Finance at Freie Universität Berlin, where he holds the Chair of International Public Economics at the School of Business & Economics. Schöb is also a Research Professor at the ifo Institute Dresden, a dual appointment that reflects his expertise in public finance and economic policy. His academic background includes earning a doctorate and completing his Habilitation at the University of Munich, followed by visiting positions at the University of Essex and the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

Schöb has held several institutional roles in economics. He served as Full Professor of Public Economics at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, where he co-developed the Magdeburger Alternative, a proposal for reducing unemployment through wage subsidies. He later joined Freie Universität Berlin and served as Dean of the School of Business & Economics. Schöb also acted as Managing Director of the Verein für Socialpolitik, the German Economic Association, contributing to its development as an internationally recognized forum for economic research.

Schöb's research covers a broad range of policy-relevant fields, including happiness and behavioral economics, labor market policy, welfare state reform, optimal taxation, and environmental economics. His work has appeared in international journals such as Economic Journal, European Economic Review, Oxford Economic Papers, and Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Notable publications include "Measuring Happiness: The Economics of Well-Being," co-authored with Joachim Weimann and Andreas Knabe and published by MIT Press, which explores how economists assess life satisfaction and examines the relationship between income and happiness. Schöb is also the author of "Der starke Sozialstaat" (The Strong Welfare State), which presents a comprehensive approach to modernizing Germany's social security system.

Schöb has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Council at the German Federal Ministry of Finance and serves as co-editor of FinanzArchiv, a longstanding journal in public finance. He has also been a member of the Expert Advisory Board of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change. Schöb's expertise in economic policy and public finance has led to appearances on German national television and radio, including SAT.1 and NDR, where he has discussed welfare reform, minimum wage policy, and Germany's basic income system. He has also participated in panels with senior government officials, including the Federal Finance Minister, on the future of social security in Germany.