BOnn, Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge – if a young economist were allowed to choose his career stations, these names would certainly be on the wish list. In the case of Simon Jäger, they are not only on the wish list, but also on the curriculum vitae. The labor market researcher – 36 years old – made it from a bachelor student in the former federal capital via several intermediate stations to associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT for short, in a decade and a half in Cambridge. In autumn he will return to his hometown of Bonn and take over the management of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). “This is a unique opportunity with many design options,” he told the FAZ
The step from an American elite university back to Germany is unusual. When it comes to reputation and the general conditions for research, Cambridge and Co. can’t be beat. One of the reasons that Jäger will pack his bags is that he is particularly interested in the German job market and can implement extensive research projects in his home country with IZA. Jäger is also tempted to get involved in economic policy discourses in Germany. “It’s about giving policy impulses from research,” says Jäger.
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