Prof. Dr. Welf Werner

Director / Professor of American Studies

Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Curt und Heidemarie Engelhorn Palais
Hauptstraße 120
69117 Heidelberg

T: +49 (0)6221-54 38 80
F: +49 (0)6221-54 37 19
E-mail: wwerner@hca.uni-heidelberg.de

Joint Appointment with the Faculty of Economics
and Social Sciences

Born in Göttingen, the director of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies was trained in economics, finance, management, and economic history at the Freie Universität Berlin and Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Before joining the faculty of International University Bremen as Professor of International Economics in 2004, he taught U.S. economic policy and history as lecturer and assistant professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies. Welf Werner received his Ph.D. and venia legendi from the Economics Department of the Freie Universität in 1992 and 2003, respectively. He was a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies in 1994 and returned to the U.S. in 1997 as a research fellow at both Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and George Washington University.

In February 2018, Welf Werner was appointed Professor of American Studies at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at Universität Heidelberg and director of the HCA. His research and teaching focus on U.S. domestic and foreign economic policies while giving due regard to their intertwining with history and political science. His interdisciplinary cooperation has occasionally gone beyond the social sciences, as, for example, with the volume Wie viel Ungleichheit verträgt die Demokratie? Armut und Reichtum in den USA, co-edited with Winfried Fluck in 2004. International dimensons of American decline are considered in a volume that he edited with Florian Böller, Hegemonic Transition: Global Economic and Security Orders in the Age of Trump (2021). Specific research interests have touched upon fields such as international trade in services, financial market globalization, monetary regime change, natural disasters and international risk management, globalization and inequality, welfare state reform, and the economic determinants of populism.

Welf Werner has occasionally advised private companies and industries on their international endeavors and engaged in public sector consulting, including for the economics ministries of Germany and Jordan. He has been granted research funding and academic honors from institutions such as Harvard University, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, VolkswagenStiftung, the German Academic Exchange Service, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, Bundesverband Deutscher Banken, Bremer Landesbank, and Stiftungsfonds Deutsche Bank.