Silke Übelmesser

Role of Information Provision and Attitudes Towards Immigration

While visiting CESifo, Silke Übelmesser will continue her work on natives’ attitudes towards immigration and how the provision of information about immigrants can correct biases in prior belief. Her findings suggest that careful composition and targeting of information interventions can increase their effectiveness in the public debate on immigration. She will also work on a joint project with Panu Poutvaara (and others) on migration aspirations and intentions based on a jointly constructed multinational dataset.

Ms. Übelmesser’s research interests are in the field of public finance and economic policy covering questions related to social policy, demographic change and gender as well as migration and education policies. Her scientific work has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals. She has also acted as an economic policy advisor to the German and the Thuringian Government as member of the Advisory Board of the Stability Council and member of the Scientific Council of the Thuringian Government related to the Corona-Pandemic, respectively.

Silke Übelmesser is a full professor for Economics and Public Finance at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, holding the Chair of Economics/Public Finance. She studied Economics at the Universities of Munich (Germany) and Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). She obtained her PhD from the University of Munich. Since 2012, she has been Research Professor of the ifo Institute affiliated to the ifo Center for International Institutional Comparisons and Migration Research. She is a Research Fellow in the CESifo Research Network and the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF) as well as a Fellow of the Centro Studi Luca d‘Agliano (LdA). During her time in Munich, she was academic coordinator of the CES visitors’ program and program director at CESifo GmbH. She was a visitor at the European University Institute in Florence and the Bocconi University in Milan.