IGAS: Institute for Global and Applied Studies

The institute is an initiative by Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Schmerer and Prof. Dr. Helmut Wagner who founded the Center for East Asian Macroeconomic Studies in 2016. Both spent several years of their career working on topics related to Japan and China before launching a platform for researchers working on similar topics.

Professor Wagner started doing research on East Asian Economics in 1988 when he first visited Japan for a short term stay at the Bank of Japan. Together with other researchers from Japan, he conducted a comparison study of monetary policy strategies of the German Central Bank and the Bank of Japan. During his following visits to Japan and China, his focus shifted from the study of an East Asian monetary integration to issues related to structural change and middle income traps in China.

Professor Schmerer studied Sinology and Economics at University of Tübingen. In 2003, he spent one year as student of Chinese Studies in Nanjing. This visit was followed by frequent stays in China, where he developed a deep knowledge in Chinese language and culture. His later research is more focused on potential labor market effects of globalization in general and application trade between Germany and China in particular. Schmerer became full professor in Chinese Economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2014 before accepting the offer of a full professorship in International Economics at University of Hagen in 2015.

The chairs for Macroeconomics and International Economics began developing their joint research agenda in East Asian Macoreconomics in the end 2015 and successfully launched the Center for East Asian Macroeconomics in 2016.