Research Training Group Regional Disparities and Economic Policy

Principal Investigators:
Prof. Jens Wrona (IN-EAST, University of Duisburg-Essen),

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Prof. Thomas Bauer (Ruhr University Bochum),
Prof. Christiane Hellmanzik (TU Dortmund),
Prof. Philip Jung (TU Dortmund),
Prof. Martin Karlsson (Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, University of Duisburg-Essen),
Prof. Sanne Kruse-Becher (Ruhr University Bochum),
Prof. Marie Paul (MSM, University of Duisburg-Essen),
Prof. Nadine Riedel (University of Münster),
Prof. Tobias Seidel (MSM, University of Duisburg-Essen),
Prof. Galina Zudenkova (TU Dortmund)

Funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Research Training Group 2484
Funding period: 10/2019 to 03/2024

The overarching goal of the RTG Regional Disparities and Economic Policy is to provide an outstanding education for doctoral students while at the same time contributing to frontier research in the exciting and dynamic field of regional economics. Combining the expertise of scholars from distinct economic backgrounds (e.g. labor, public, macro) and thus different methodological skills, institutional knowledge, and data access, we establish a graduate program that promises internationally visible scientific output and an excellent academic training environment for PhD candidates.

Research Agenda
Regional disparities – for example with respect to income, housing costs, labor market, education and health outcomes – are pronounced, persistent, and at times divergent, but the debate about their origins, consequences, and appropriate policy responses is still largely unresolved. The RTG Regional Disparities and Economic Policy aims to improve our knowledge of underlying economic mechanisms and hence lay the groundwork for well-founded policy recommendations by applying and further developing recent methodological advances in regional economics as well as utilizing unique data sets. To this end, the Research Data Center at RWI – Leibniz-Institute for Economic Research, specialized on regional data, constitutes an important partner of the RTG.

Link to project website