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

Publication

April 2021

I wrote a contribution called "Poverty Research and its Discontents: Review and Discussion of Issues Raised in Dimensions of Poverty. Measurement, Epistemic Injustices and Social Activism" for the Review of Income and Wealth in this journal's special format that combines book discussions with reviews of the literature. Departing from this excellent edited volume Dimension of Poverty. Measurement, Epistemic Injustice and Activism, I discuss a number of issues around current poverty research.

Accepted paper

January 2021

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 working 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 has been accepted for publication in Latin American Research Review.

Publication

April 2020

I wrote a comment on the Econ Nobel 2019 that appeared in ORDO with the title "Winning the fight against global poverty one experiment at the time? The Economics Nobel 2019". The text is available as open access here.