Klaus Wälde
Klaus Wälde is a German economist and Professor of Economics at the Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz. He is also an extramural fellow at the Université catholique de Louvain and a fellow of the CESifo network. Previously, he was Professor of Economics at the Universities of Dresden, Würzburg and Glasgow. He also worked for the World Bank and for the European Commission.
He published on macroeconomics and economic theory, on labour market research and the analysis of the role of emotions in decision making. His evaluations of Hartz III and Hartz IV received quite some interest from the public. He is also supportive of the role of trade unions in society. He teaches in the "Dynamic Aspects of Stress at Work" graduate school at the Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz. This is an interdisciplinary graduate school of psychologists and economists.
As of March 2020 he contributed to the analysis of COVID-19 dynamics in Germany. Applying methods from labour market theory to epidemiology, he developed new versions of the SIR model to predict the evolution of COVID-19 in Germany. This received a lot of attention in the . Earlier analyses also discussed in his focused on or on the .
Media responses were strongest for the . Examples include, ,, a page 1 news on or De Volkskrant. The is among the most noticed scientific articles according to .
His most known textbook is titled Applied Intertemporal Optimization, and is a frequently downloaded economics textbook.
Klaus Wälde held a research professorship at the Gutenberg Research College from 2009 to 2014.