Kiel Institute for World Economics

The Kiel Institute for World Economics at the University of Kiel is an international center for economic policy research and documentation, it has about 270 employees. The Institute’s main activities are economic research, economic policy consulting, and the documentation and provision of information about international economic relations. The Institute’s publications and services are addressed to academics in Germany and abroad as well as to decision-makers in both the public and private sectors, and to those people in the general public interested in domestic and international economic policy. The Institute’s Library is one of the world’s largest libraries for economics and social sciences and the Institute’s Economic Archives have a comprehensive collection of newspaper cuttings spanning eight decades.

The Institute was founded in 1914 by Bernhard Harms. The Institute, which is an independent institution, is affiliated with the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. It is a member of the Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (WGL), which unites institutes and service providers of supraregional importance.

In the field of academic research the Institute regards applied research as its principal domain. The Institute engages especially in the empirical analysis of current economic policy issues, the theoretical analysis of new economic phenomena, and innovative economic thinking to find new solutions to economic policy problems.

Main Areas of Research

The Institute’s central area of research is the international division of labor from a static and dynamic point of view. The Institute analyzes the sectoral and spatial allocation of goods, services, and factors of production. The endowments of countries, including the environment, the changes of these endowments over time, and the international interdependencies between monetary and fiscal policies and between business cycles of various countries are investigated. In analyzing these phenomena, special emphasis is given to the consideration of institutional settings in national as well as international terms and to the incentive and political economy systems that are part of these settings.

The main activities of the five research departments are in following areas:

The research program of the Growth, Structural Change, and International Division of Labor Department centers around the division of labor in the world economy and related structural adjustment processes in highly developed, internationally open economies. In particular, the transition from the industrial economy to a service and information economy, with its implications for employment and institutional settings on the labor market, are analyzed. Special emphasis is laid upon the impact of European integration.

Research activities in the Environmental and Resource Economics Department focus on the allocation of environmental and natural resources. The factors influencing the increasing scarcity of natural resources are investigated and their impact on the allocation of factors of production and goods in the world economy is assessed. Natural resources encompass energy resources, nonenergy raw materials, environmental quality, and biological diversity. Both the intertemporal aspects of increasing scarcity and the allocation of scarce natural resources are the subject of research activities in the Department. National as well as international aspects of environmental policy and allocative as well as distributional effects are analyzed and efficient and rational policy instruments are developed.

The Regional Economics Department focuses on spatial perspectives of the international division of labor and its implications for economic growth and development. It analyzes how centripetal and centrifugal as well as integrating and disintegrating forces are shaping the spatial division of labor. Hence, the analysis of patterns of regional specialization, interregional trade, regional growth, and appropriate regional governance structures figure high on the Department’s research agenda.

In the Development Economics and Global Integration Department research is principally targeted toward identifying the prerequisites for the successful integration of developing countries, emerging countries, and transformation countries into global and regional goods and factor markets, as well as toward analyzing the determinants and implications of differences in the speed of economic growth between these countries.

The Business Cycles Department analyzes and forecasts the cyclical development in the world economy, with a particular focus on Germany, the euro area and other industrial countries. The Department uses several data bases which are permanently updated by adding national and international data from official and nonofficial sources. Further, it uses new theoretical developments which may enhance the analysis of the macro economy. In addition, modern econometric methods are used to improve the empirical basis for the forecasts and the assessment of economic policy.

In addition to the five research departments there is a separate Research Area "International Financial Markets". It focusses on the integration of financial markets and the structure and determinants of international capital flows. Special attention is paid to the effects of financial market volatility in developed and emerging markets and their repercussions on other sectors of the economy.

Kiel Institute for World Economics
Düsternbrooker Weg 120
24105 Kiel
Tel: +49 (0)4 31/88 141
Fax: +49 (0)4 31/8814500
E-Mail: info@ifw.uni-kiel.de

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Further Information: www.uni-kiel.de/ifw/