Kiel Institute for the World Economy
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy is an independent, non-profit economic research institute and think tank based in Kiel, Germany. In 2017, it was ranked as one of the top 50 most influential think tanks in the world and was also ranked in the top 15 in the world for economic policy specifically. The German business newspaper Handelsblatt referred to the institute as "Germany's most influential economic think tank", while Die Welt stated that "The best economists in the world are in Kiel".
Founded in 1914, the institute is the oldest economic research institute in Germany. Its main areas of specialities include global economic research, economic policy, and economic education. The institute gave rise to the world's largest specialist library of economics and the social sciences, the German National Library of Economics, which has access to more than four million publications in printed or electronic format and subscriptions to over 30,000 periodicals and journals. It is also a member of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community, or Leibniz Association, an association of research institutions, museums, and centers that includes Germany's six leading economic research institutes. The institute employs approximately 160 people, of whom more than 80 are economists. The current president of the institute is Moritz Schularick, a German economist who specializes in macrofinance, banking and financial stability, international finance, political economy, and economic history.
History
Founding
The institute was founded under the name of Königliches Institut für Seeverkehr und Weltwirtschaft an der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel on 18 February 1914, and opened two days later at the address Schlossgarten 14. With the help of its Sponsors' Association, it was to acquire new premises in 1919, a hotel called the Seebadeanstalt, which was owned by the Krupp family, a prominent family in manufacturing and steelmaking industry. The institute moved to its new premises in the spring of 1920, where it changed its name to the current German one in 1934.Its original mission, as part of the University of Kiel, was to study the world economy. It was one of the first institutions to adopt a research agenda focused on international economics, while most other economic institutes focused heavily on national economies. The institute sought to understand global economic flows and trends through consulting the German government on economic policy recommendations and developing an international network of experts. The founding director and first head of the Kiel Institute, Bernhard Harms, directed the establishment of a research library, which was systematically expanded by Wilhelm Gülich, the head of the library for a number of years as of 1924, into the world's largest economics library. Harms also established several journals and an economics-related press archive. Further, he attached great importance to linking research to practical economics and to teaching research findings to economics students.
World War I and World War II
The institute at the time conducted international research for the benefit of Germany, which led to the establishment of a war archive and to the expansion of the institute during World War I. During the Weimar Republic, the institute established a reputation for competence in international economics. In 1926, the institute established a department for statistical economics and business-cycle research, which gave the institute a new profile in business cycle theory and business cycle policies. The new department was headed by Adolph Lowe and staffed by such researchers as Gerhard Colm, Hans Neisser, Jacob Marschak, and Wassily Leontief, all of whom published highly acclaimed research findings.When the Nazi Party seized power in Germany, Jewish members of staff and members of staff who were active in the Social Democratic Party were quickly forced to leave the institute. This affected the new department for statistical economics and business cycle research the most, and many of the staff in the department emigrated to the United States, where they became professors of economics. Bernhard Harms initially supported the Nazis and remained the head of the institute, but later resisted the Sturmabteilung when it forced the Jewish members of staff to leave the institute, and was himself then forced to leave. Formally, he retained his professorship at the University of Kiel, but was actually only active academically as an honorary professor in Berlin until his death in 1939. Harms was succeeded by Jens Jessen, who, because of differences with the Nazis, had himself transferred to the University of Marburg in October 1934. He was succeeded by Andreas Predöhl, who had worked for a long time under Bernhard Harms. Predöhl served as director of the institute from July 1934 to November 1945. He strengthened the ties between the institute and the University of Kiel and prevented the institute's library from being cleansed of books written by Jews. During his term in office, the library was also able to buy foreign literature until far into World War II.
Throughout the war, the institute continued to conduct international economic research that was important for Germany's war planning and its economic aspects, for example, access to natural resources and the geopolitical significance of areas that Germany considered to be part of its "Grossraum", up until 1945. A comprehensive analysis of the research conducted by the institute between 1933 and 1945 has never been undertaken. The complete holdings of the library were moved to Ratzeburg and thus were not destroyed during the war. However, parts of the institute and its press archive were destroyed. After the war, British occupation authorities dismissed Predöhl as the director of the institute but allowed him to remain a professor at the University of Kiel, which he left for a professorship at the University of Münster in 1953. He died at the age of 80 in Münster in 1974.
Postwar period
It was in the postwar period that the institute began to dominate "the German economic landscape". Friedrich Hoffmann was temporarily appointed to replace Predöhl as the acting director of the institute and was succeeded, in 1948, by Fritz Baade, who devoted himself primarily to research in agricultural economics and food security. Under his leadership and thanks to his good connections in the United States and other countries, he was able to reintegrate the institute into the international research community and to expand its role as an important economic research center with its own large library and its own archive of press clippings.Erich Schneider succeeded Fritz Baade as the director of the institute in 1961. As the leading proponent of Keynesianism in Germany at the time and the author of a multivolume bestseller entitled "Einführung in die Volkwirtschaftslehre", he affiliated the institute more closely with the University of Kiel, which resulted in many researchers at the institute becoming professors at German and non-German universities. He also established the Bernhard Harms Prize in 1964 upon the institute's 50th anniversary. The first person to be awarded the prize, Gerhard Colm, was a former researcher at the institute, a professor, an advisor to President Truman, and the engineer of the German currency reform in 1948. By the 1970s, the institute was recognized as "the most prestigious of the five main economic think tanks in Germany".
Herbert Giersch was appointed director of the institute in 1969 and subsequently became president of the institute. Numerous macroeconomic changes and geopolitical, which determined the institute's research and policy-advising activities, took place during his period in office: the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the rise in oil prices, and the increased manufacturing in developing countries and emerging markets. Giersch strengthened the institute's policy-advising role in Germany by playing a leading intellectual role in the German Council of Economic Experts. In this role, the institute became involved in numerous controversies with the German government because it differed with the government on such important issues as exchange rate policies and monetary, labor, and industrial policies. Under Giersch's leadership, the institute became significantly more active in research based on international collaboration. As a result, it played a leading role in the Sonderforschungsbereich 86 "Weltwirtschaft und internationale Wirtschaftsbeziehungen".
Present day
Giersch was succeeded by Horst Siebert in 1989. Numerous economic sea changes also took place during his period in office: communist economies collapsed, the two Germanys were reunited, China became a world economic power, information technology emerged, and reforms of the labor market and social security systems became topical, as did the sustainable use of environmental resources as well. During his period in office, he was, like Herbert Giersch before, a member of the German Council of Economic Experts. Further, he defined the institute's public image by often appearing on television and by publishing numerous articles and monographs on topical economic issues. Under his leadership, the institute became more involved in environmental and resource economics, and international financial market economics. Siebert served as the president of the institute until 2003, when he was given emeritus status.After a period of 18 months in which the institute had difficulties appointing a new president, Dennis J. Snower succeeded Siebert. Snower was appointed president of the institute in October 2004 and is the first non-German to be appointed head of a leading economic research institute in Germany. He reorganized the institute from the ground up, redefined its mission, and established such events as the Global Economic Symposium and the Global Economy Prize Awards, both of which are symbolic of the institute's mission: to be a highly competent center for global economic affairs in research, education and policy-advising pertaining to topics and issues that are of immediate social importance from a global perspective, and to strike a balance between being a research center on its own and a part of various research networks.
, the institute's library officially became an independent nonprofit organization under German public law, and renamed itself the German National Library of Economics. The ZBW is the world's largest research library for economic literature, providing scholars and researchers with documents through its Open Access portal, along with the ZBW-owned repositories EconStor and EconBiz. In 2014, the institute celebrated its 100-year anniversary.