Reint E. Gropp

Gropp made headlines in 2019 when his institute published a study proving that East German companies are 20 percent less productive than their West German equivalents. Gropp blamed the continuous subsidy policy and recommended no longer supporting rural areas but focusing on cities instead.

Since November 2014, Gropp is President of the Halle Institute for Economic Research and professor of economics at [Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. He is Fellow of the Center for Financial Studies, Frankfurt am Main, and Associate Editor of the Review of Finance. He serves as a consultant for the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Gropp studied economics at the University of Freiburg and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He obtained his PhD in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1994. He worked for the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. from 1994 to 1999 and for the European Central Bank from 1999 to 2007, most recently as Deputy Head of the Financial Research Division. After that, Gropp was professor of financial economics and taxation at EBS University Wiesbaden until 2012. From 2012 to 2014, he held a Chair of Sustainable Banking and Finance at the House of Finance, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.

Reint E. Gropp (born 21 December 1966 in Bottrop) is a German economist, the President of the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) as well as professor of economics at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. His fields of research cover financial economics, macroeconomics, corporate finance as well as money and banking.