Svenja FLECHTNER

WELCOME TO MY ACADEMIC WEBSITE!

I am an economist at the University of Siegen, Germany. I work as an assistant professor in the MA program Pluralist Economics. Here is my university website, and this is the website of the Research Center Pluralist Economics at Siegen (in German).

My research focuses on questions of economic and social development in the context of socio-economic inequalities. In particular, I have been working on behavioral development economics. I am also interested in interdisciplinary research and the philosophy and practice of pluralism in economics. I am a member of the editorial team of the blog Developing Economics as well as a fellow of the ZOE Institute for future-fit economies and of the Forum for Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policy (FMM).

I have taught a range of courses in economics and interdisciplinary area studies in Bachelor's and Master's degrees at Europa-Universität Flensburg, Freie Universität Berlin, the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, and the University of Siegen.

I teach courses on economic growth, development and distribution, behavioural economics, international political economy and philosophy of economics.

NEWS

Upcoming publication

June 2022

Diego Sánchez-Ancochea (University of Oxford) and I are investigating dynamics and determinants of public social spending in Latin America. As a first outcome of this project, we have a first paper that discusses our reflections on the state of the literature, and on why it is - seemingly -so difficult to find any consensus emerging from past research. We argue that mixed-methods approaches may help improve the situation. The paper will be published in the Latin American Research Review in June 2022.

New research project

May 2022

Jointly with Inga Hardeck (University of Regensburg), I am starting a research project to study the link between corporate taxes and wages in Germany. We want to know if it is plausible, given intra-firm processes of information processing and decision-making, that higher corporate taxes harm workers because their wages will rise less in the future.

The project is funded by the Hans-Böckler Foundation. More information can be found here.

Grant

March 2022

I am one of the recipients of the Maria-Weber-Grant 2022. This grant, awarded by the Hans-Böckler Foundation, buys junior researchers research time, as the grant money will be used to reduce teaching load.