Professor Südekum, born in 1975, studied economics at the University of Göttingen and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in 2003 with a thesis on spatial unemployment disparities in the European Union under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Peter Rühmann. He became Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Konstanz in 2003. After a temporary appointment as a visiting professor at the University of Mainz in 2007, he received offers for full professorship from the universities of Duisburg-Essen and Kassel. In October 2007, he was appointed as a full professor of economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, where he holds the chair for microeconomics and international trade. Prof. Südekum has received several awards such as the EPAINOS award of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) or the BAK Award for Advanced Research in Regional Economics. Based on publications in high-quality international journals the German leading business newspaper Handelsblatt ranked him among the top-100 economists below the age of 40 in the German-speaking countries.

Professor Südekum teaches courses in industrial organization, international trade and urban economics/economic geography. His teaching is based on solid knowledge of microeconomic theory and applied game theory, which are indispensable tools for an analytical approach to solving real world economic problems in almost any area, and in logistics and traffic management in particular. In his more advanced courses he mostly addresses spatial economic issues. This ranges from specific topics in urban economics to the phenomenon of regional agglomeration to issues in international trade with imperfect competition. Professor Südekum was also recently appointed as faculty member of the renowned Ruhr Graduate School of Economics, where he teaches courses on spatial economics and international trade on a post-graduate level.

The research focus of Professor Südekum is on the issue of economic agglomeration. He is an expert in the theory of the "new economic geography" but he also uses empirical methods to address various issues on the impact of agglomeration on local labour markets. His secondary research interest lies in the area of industrial organization, where he focuses on international aspects of competition policy, in particular on cross-border mergers and the formation of "national champions" in merger policy.
Professor Südekum has extensively published in leading economics journals such as the Journal of Urban Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Economic Geography, Journal of Regional Science, Regional Studies, Papers in Regional Science, Annals of Regional Science, Kyklos, Labour Economics, European Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economics, Financial Archive, and others.
He frequently acts as a reviewer for international journals and research funds. His work has been highly appreciated and financially supported by research funds from the state of Baden-Württemberg as well as the European Commission. He is research fellow of renowned institutions such as the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA).

http://www.msm.uni-due.de/miau