Gabriel Felbermayr

President of the Kiel Institute

March 2019 – September 2021

* June 24, 1976

After studying in Linz, earning his doctorate in Florence and a brief stint at McKinsey & Co. in Vienna, Felbermayr spent three years as an assistant professor at the University of Tübingen. He then took on a chair in international economics at the University of Hohenheim for one year. From 2010, he headed the ifo Center for International Economics and took on a professorship in economics at the University of Munich. In March 2019, he succeeded Dennis Snower as president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. 

He initiated a jointly developed new institute strategy under the leitmotif "Understanding and shaping globalization."  He brought the driving and braking forces in international trade in goods and services back into sharper focus in the institute's work. Its visibility in the public sphere grew significantly through numerous contributions to debates and exchanges with the media - especially during the COVID-19 crisis, which accompanied large parts of Felbermayr's presidency. As a result, the institute became even more in demand as an economic policy advisor at the national level. He also strengthened the institute's regional roots by expanding its relations with actors in northern Germany and advising the state government in Kiel. He secured the institute's funding through major successes in attracting third-party funding and made new projects possible.

Felbermayr left the institute at the end of September 2021 before the end of his term of office in order to take over the management of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO). He remains connected to the Kiel Institute through cooperation, especially in the academic field.