“Goethe University is proud of having an excellent researcher such as Volker Wieland among its faculty, who is capable of successfully conveying his research regarding monetary policy not only within the science community but also at the highest political level and in open public forums”, Prof. Birgitta Wolff, President of Goethe University, said during a ceremony in Frankfurt on Tuesday.
“Prof. Wieland distinguishes himself by an undogmatic scientific excellence”, Prof. Herrmann Remsperger, Founding Chairman of the Council of the Foundation of Monetary and Financial Stability (Stiftung Geld und Währung), emphasized in his laudatory speech. “He positions himself with precision and conciseness concerning issues that are relevant in a sociopolitical sense for the order of the monetary and financial system.” Remsperger commended Wieland on his research on quantitative easing and the zero lower bound which he praised as pioneering work in the area of monetary theory and monetary policy. “Not only on a European level but also worldwide he ranks among the top economists”, Remsperger added.
“I am very happy about this distinction. My main concern is to develop scientific models and methods that can be applied to real economic problems and to bring the findings into the debate on economic policy. In this context, the exchange with the actors in central banks, the financial markets and in fiscal politics is particularly important to me”, Wieland said on the occasion of the ceremony.
Born in 1966, Wieland holds the Endowed Chair of Monetary Economics at the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) since 2012 and is the institute’s Managing Director. Among other things, he has built an open database for comparing macroeconomic models. Since 2013 he is a member of the German Council of Economic Experts. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the German Ministry of Finance and of the Kronberger Kreis, that is the Scientific Council of the Market Economy Foundation (Stiftung Marktwirtschaft). Wieland has served as a consultant to a number of international institutions including, in particular, the European Central Bank, the European Commission, the Federal Reserve Board and the Reserve Bank of Finland.
The foundation of Alfons and Gertrud Kassel (Alfons und Gertrud Kassel-Stiftung) was founded in 2007 in Frankfurt. It is dedicated to promoting science, research and teaching at Goethe University Frankfurt. It is based on an endowment fund of 33 million euros, which the banker couple left as a legacy and which the foundation uses to promote several projects at Goethe University, such as Goethe University’s “Scientist of the Year” award.
The IMFS is a research center at Goethe University. Its main objective is the interdisciplinary economic and legal research and policy advice regarding money and currency. It aims to promote public awareness of the benefits of monetary and financial stability. Founded in 2007 on the initiative of the Foundation of Monetary and Financial Stability (Stiftung Geld und Währung), in the next ten years the IMFS will expand its interdisciplinary research activities with the support of the foundation and Goethe University. In the future, the tasks, competences and powers of central banks in monetary policy and regulation and financial supervision will be even more in the center of the research work.
Laudatory speech by Prof. Hermann Remsperger (PDF in German)
Börsen-Zeitung: "Wirtschaftsweiser Wieland erhält Preis der Kassel-Stiftung"