Professor Stefan Bauernschuster

'My research typically deals with the role of the state in market economies. Often, I investigate how policies influence decisions made by individuals in the areas of work, family and health. For my empirical analyses, I rely on rich individual-level administrative data and data from large-scale surveys. For some recent projects, I used, for example, detailed data on all individual hospitalisations in Germany (including information on the exact diagnosis, the age and gender of the patient), on all individual births (including information on birth weight and height as well as the age of the mother), or on all individual road accidents recorded by the police (including information on the type of accident, on fatalities, injuries and material damage). Sometimes, I also work with newly digitised historical data to analyse socio-economically relevant questions from the past.

I am fascinated by questions that are not only of academic interest but also carry significant political relevance. Methodologically, I use quasi-experimental identification strategies to uncover genuine cause-and-effect relationships instead of just describing naive partial correlations. Identifying true causal effects allows us to make a sound evaluation of policies, which enables us to objectively assess policies without having to rely on ideological or political doctrines and unverified apparent truths.

In my research, I often work at the intersection of economics and other disciplines, such as law, history or political science. I find it exciting to add my economic perspective on topics that resonate with colleagues in other disciplines and to learn how they work and think about these topics.'