About

Rüdiger Bachmann

Stepan Family College Professor of Economics, Graduate Placement Director

Ph.D. 2007, Yale University

Rüdiger Bachmann is a Stepan Family College Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame.  At Notre Dame, he is also a faculty affiliate of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.  He is a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a research fellow of the CESifo research network, an IZA research fellow, and an external research professor at the ifo institute in Munich.  He is also a member of the Atlantikbrücke e.V.

Prior to joining the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in macroeconomics, Bachmann was a full professor (W3) of behavioral economics and finance jointly at Goethe University and the Center of Excellence “Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe” (SAFE) in Frankfurt; the chair of economics, in particular Macroeconomics (W3), at RWTH Aachen University; an assistant professor of economics at the University of Michigan; and a visiting (assistant) professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Boston University, and Yale University.  Bachmann received undergraduate degrees in Economics and Philosophy from Mainz University, and a PhD from Yale University in 2007.  Bachmann is also a member of the editorial board of Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik and is a member of the macroeconomics committee of the German Economic Association.  He has advised the German federal government and members of parliament on a number of occasions.

Bachmann’s research area is macroeconomics, where he specializes in the macroeconomics of heterogeneous agents.  He is also interested in the effects of uncertainty and expectation formation on macroeconomic outcomes.  His research uses the econometric tools of empirical macroeconomics as well as state-of-the-art numerical simulation techniques.  He has also branched out into the use of surveys, especially firm surveys, to address macroeconomic questions.  Bachmann became known to a wider audience through his policy brief “What if? The Economic Effects for Germany of a Stop of Energy Imports from Russia”, in which the authors argue that Germany could wean itself off Russian natural gas imports without an economic disaster.

His research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of the European Economic Association, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the International Economic Review, the Review of Economic Dynamics, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, the European Economic Review, Quantitative Economics, Economics Letters, and Economic Theory.

Rüdiger Bachmann is married to Ying Fan, a tenured associate professor of economics at the University of Michigan.  They have two children.  They live in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Areas of Interest

  • Macroeconomics