Guido Schwerdt

Elite Decision-making

Determining how political elites make policy decisions is a fundamental challenge for researchers in the social sciences. In an ongoing project, Guido Schwerdt and his collaborators focus on two decision-making features: 1) the role of policy-relevant information and its ability to change preferences and 2) the role that the demands of the electorate play in the decision-making of elites regarding these matters. Their core research design utilizes experiments embedded within elite surveys, which are accompanied by parallel survey experiments with representative samples of citizens. These citizen surveys supply estimates of electoral support as well as a benchmark for assessing elite decision-making.

Mr. Schwerdt’s research interests include the Economics of Education, Labor Economics and Public Economics. During his stay at ifo, he also intends to discuss with Ludger Woessmann some project ideas based on the next wave of the PIAAC data, which will become available in 2024 and, building on their previous work, they will possibly launch a new project on the returns to skills.

Guido Schwerdt is Professor of Economics, in particular Public Economics, at the University of Konstanz. Before joining the faculty in Konstanz, he was Professor of Economics, in particular Applied Microeconomics, at the University of Siegen, researcher at the ifo Institute and research fellow at the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University. He graduated in Economics from the University of Bonn and received his PhD in Economics from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. He is also an ifo Research Professor and Fellow of the CESifo Research Network.