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Professor Stefan Bauernschuster

Stefan Bauernschuster is Professor of Public Economics at the University of Passau since 2013. He is also research professor at the Ifo Institute Munich, CESifo Affiliate, IZA Research Fellow and a member of the committee for social policy of the German Economic Association.Furthermore he is one the principal investigators of the DFG Research Training Group 2720 "Digital Platform Ecosystems (DPE) – Digital platform-based value creation and its implications for data exchange, organisation and socio-economic development".  In his research, he uses micro-econometric methods to answer policy relevant questions in the fields of labor, population, health and education economics

Stefan Bauernschuster is Professor of Public Economics at the University of Passau since 2013. He is also research professor at the Ifo Institute Munich, CESifo Affiliate, IZA Research Fellow and a member of the committee for social policy of the German Economic Association.Furthermore he is one the principal investigators of the DFG Research Training Group 2720 "Digital Platform Ecosystems (DPE) – Digital platform-based value creation and its implications for data exchange, organisation and socio-economic development".  In his research, he uses micro-econometric methods to answer policy relevant questions in the fields of labor, population, health and education economics

'I occupy myself with the question of how political measures influence decisions made by individuals and families in the areas of work, family and health. In particular, for my empirical analyses, as well as data from large-scale surveys, I also use disaggregated administrative data, for example data on all individual hospitalisations in Germany, all individual births or all individual road accidents recorded by the police. This work often relates to current socio-political topics, but sometimes also, retrospectively, to measures of historical interest. Modern technologies such as digital platform systems throw up exciting new questions relating to traffic, living and health, and present challenges to the social market economy. Those challenges will also occupy me in the future.

My research interest focuses on topics of political relevance. I try to uncover genuine cause-and-effect relationships and not merely describe naive correlations. That knowledge allows me to make objective assessments of political measures, instead of just being driven by doctrines that have a particular political and/or ideological colour to them.

In my research I often move in areas which are at the interface between economics and, for example, linguistics, law, history or political science. I think it's exciting to be able to think about topics that also occupy colleagues in other subject areas.'

Related research

Professor Bauernschuster has conducted numerous empirical studies on the role of institutions in the context of socio-economic transformation.

More on Professor Stefan Bauernschuster’s research.

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Do Transit Strikes Affect Public Health?

In a study appearing in the February 2017 issue of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, researchers Stefan Bauernschuster, Timo Hener, and Helmut Rainer studied 71 transit strikes across five major German cities. They found that strikes can lead to some serious health problems for a city’s residents. Video: American Economic Association

Research stories

Distinguished keynote series on 'Digital Platform Ecosystems' at the University of Passau

In the distinguished keynote series 'Digital Platform Ecosystems (DPE)', internationally outstanding researchers have presented their latest findings.

Gast an der Rezeption: Passauer Forscher haben anhand der Hotelbranche untersucht, wie Führungskräfte auf digitale Konkurrenz wie Airbnb reagieren.

The coronavirus crisis is affecting everyone, but digital platforms such as Airbnb are still managing to cope better than traditional business areas. Why is this? We asked researchers at our University who are working on the sharing economy.

Ökonomin Dr. García-Ramos forscht und lehrt seit 2018 am Lehrstuhl für Public Economics an der Universität Passau. Foto: Universität Passau

A law reform is lowering barriers in divorce law in Mexican states. The young economist Dr. Aixa García-Ramos shows in a study that the reform is also having a side effect which was not intended by the legislators.

In deutschsprachigen Ländern dürfen Jugendliche bereits ab dem Alter von 16 Jahren Bier trinken. Symbolbild: Colourbox

Taking Austria as an example, we show that this minimum legal drinking age, which has been set very low in terms of international comparison, causes particular harm to young people from socially disadvantaged families. By a team of economists from…

Blick in das Arbeitszimmer von Robert Koch. Quelle: RKI

Our study substantiates that the first system of general compulsory health insurance saved lives, primarily through the dissemination of exclusive medical knowledge. By Professor Stefan Bauernschuster

Studie der Universität Passau: Blitzmarathons bremsen Raserinnen und Raser nur kurz. Foto: Adobe Stock

Professor Stefan Bauernschuster and Dr. Ramona Rekers have spent four years evaluating millions of datasets to show that speed trap campaigns are only effective in the short term.

Menschenmenge in Berlin: Wie blicken Ost- und Westdeutsche knapp drei Jahrzehnte nach der Wiedervereinigung auf ihr Land und ihre Gesellschaft? Dieser Frage ist ein Forschungsteam der Universität Passau und des ifo Instituts München nachgegangen.

Professor Stefan Bauernschuster from the University of Passau and his colleagues of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich have studied differences in attitude between East Germans and West Germans with an interesting result.

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