Project Leaders

Lydia Mechtenberg has a PhD in philosophy and another PhD in economics. She is Professor of Political Economy at University of Hamburg and uses theory and experiments to investigate economic and political behavior. Her research is published in leading international journals such as Review of Economic Studies, Management Science, and the Journal of Public Economics.

Anselm Hager holds a PhD from Columbia University and a BSc (First Class) from the London School of Economics. He is Professor of International Politics at Humboldt-University in Berlin. He uses methods of causal inference to study topics ranging from political activism to development. His work has been published in leading international journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Political Science Review, and the American Journal of Political Science.

Claudia Landwehr has a PhD in political science and is professor of political theory and public policy at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She is a democratic theorist who also studies democracy empirically, using survey data and experiments. Her work has been published in journals including American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science and the Journal of Political Philosophy.

Heike Klüver is Full Professor and Chair of Comparative Political Behavior at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Spokesperson of the DFG Research Training Group DYNAMICS. Her research focuses on political behavior and electoral competition and was published amongst others in leading international journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Journal of Political Science, Political Analysis and the Journal of Politics.

Grischa Perino is Professor of Environmental Economics and Director of the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) at University of Hamburg. He uses theory and experiments to investigate support for an impact of climate policies. His research is published in leading international journals such as Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Food and the Journal of Public Economics.

Rupert Sausgruber is Professor of Economics at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. His research examines how new developments in behavioral economics advance our knowledge and understanding of public economics, including taxation, redistribution, and the provision of public goods. He has published widely in renowned international journals, including the Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Review, Experimental Economics, and Journal of Economic Psychology.

Katharina Zimmermann is assistant professor of Sociology at University of Hamburg. She specializes on comparative welfare state research, green transitions, European social and employment policies, and the nexus between social and environmental protection. She is a co-founder of the ‘Sustainable Welfare and Eco-Social Policies network. Her work has been published in leading journals such as Journal of Common Market Studies.

Stefan Voigt is professor of Law & Economics at the University of Hamburg in Germany and he is best known for his research in constitutional political economy. He is editor of the journal Constitutional Political Economy and member of various editorial boards including those of Public Choice and the International Review of Law & Economics. More recently, he has started to publish on the relevance of informal institutions for economic development.