Research Focus

The picture shows the professors Benjamin Auer, Mike Geppert, Bernd Hüfner, Harald Jansen, Christian Lukas and Peter Walgenbach

Image: Anne Günther (University of Jena)

The chairs of the Corporate Governance: Management and Corporate Control specialisation deal broadly with issues of corporate governance. Corporate governance refers to the legal and factual framework for the management and supervision of a company. Management and control refers to the totality of management tasks that serve to implement and monitor corporate decisions.

The chairs in this specialisation focus their research on different aspects of corporate governance.

Prof. Dr. Jansen's chair uses information economics and agency theory approaches to investigate the influence of taxation on the regulation of managerial decisions. In a sometimes uncertain regulatory environment, this also includes the influence of tax contract design on the development of the legal regulatory framework.

Prof. Auer's chair teaches how managers can identify and contain standard and life-threatening business risks (in procurement, sales, credit or foreign exchange transactions). This includes not only the fundamental dynamics of derivative financial products and financial mathematical approaches to their valuation, but also the question of their specific practical use and the problems that arise. Overall, students will be provided with a package of knowledge, methods and applications that will enable them to stabilise corporate cash flows, reduce uncertainties in project planning and optimise corporate financing and investment strategies.

The chair of Prof. Dr. Lukas deals with the analysis of dynamic incentive problems, behavioural controlling and experimental controlling research.

Prof. Hüfner's chair focuses on the conceptual analysis of German and international accounting, share valuation and financial reporting, which are central aspects of corporate governance.

The Chair of Prof. Dr. Walgenbach focuses on issues related to the design and change of organisational structures. Organisational structures serve to align the actions of the members of the organisation with the objectives of the company.

The chair of Prof. Dr. Geppert examines power relations in companies, political conflicts and conflict resolution mechanisms. Also the relationships between actors and firms in global value chains and transformation processes in the global economy an analysed.

Participating professors:

• Finance - Prof. Dr. Benjamin R. Auer de
• Strategic and International Management - Prof. Dr. Mike GeppertExternal link
• Accounting - Prof. Dr. Bernd Hüfner de
• Taxation and Auditing - Prof. Dr. Harald Jansen de
• Controlling - Prof. Dr. Christian Lukas de
• Organisation, Leadership und Human Resource Management - Prof. Dr. Peter WalgenbachExternal link

The picture shows the professors Bernd Hüfner, Benjamin Auer, Christian Lukas and Harald Jansen

Image: David Delkus

Participating professors:

• Finance - Prof. Dr. Benjamin R. Auer de
• Accounting - Prof. Dr. Bernd Hüfner de
• Taxation and Auditing - Prof. Dr. Harald Jansen de
• Controlling - Prof. Dr. Christian Lukas de

The picture shows the professors Matthias Menter, Uwe Cantner and Holger Graf.

Image: Innovation and Change

Innovations in the form of new products and processes as well as social innovations are the drivers of technological change, economic growth, and social welfare. With our research, we want to contribute to a better understanding of the sources, prerequisites, and effects of innovations, especially in the context of concurrent transformative change. Within this broad field of research, we are particularly concerned with the following topics:

• Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems
• Industrial dynamics and evolution
• Productivity, structural change, and growth
• Sustainability and transformative change
• Knowledge networks and regional innovation
• Technology transfer and entrepreneurial universities
• Research and innovation policy

Participating professors:

• Microeconomics (Prof. Cantner)
• Business Dynamics, Innovation and Economic Change (Prof. Menter)
• Economics of Innovation (PD Dr. Graf)

The picture shows Professors Daniel Streitz, Huyen Nguyen and Roland Winkler.

Image: Macroeconomics and Financial Markets

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008 and the euro area’s sovereign debt crisis of 2010–2012 exemplify how financial crashes can lead to severe recessions. Building on the lessons learned from these events, the Financial Markets Group and the Macroeconomics Research Group have joined forces to advance research at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance. Our goal is to deepen the understanding of the root causes of financial crashes, the intricate interplay between financial markets and the macroeconomy, and how economic policy can foster financial and macroeconomic stability.

The Financial Markets Group focuses on the functioning of financial markets and intermediaries and their impact on the real economy, i.e., firms and households. Current research areas include the influence of law and regulation on bank and firm behavior, the effects of banking regulation and supervision on financial stability, the financial policy decisions of firms, and the role of financial markets in the transition towards a net-zero economy.

The Macroeconomics Research Group focuses on the causes and consequences of economic fluctuations and the potential of monetary and fiscal policy to promote macroeconomic stability, particularly for groups most affected by economic downturns. Current research includes exploring how frictions in labor and financial markets influence business cycle fluctuations and the effectiveness of stabilization policies.

We use various quantitative methods to address these questions, ranging from simulation studies using structural (macro-)economic models to time series and panel data techniques for analyzing rich macro- and microeconomic data.

Participating professors:

• Finance, Law, and Regulation (Prof. Streitz)
• Financial Economics (JProf. Nguyen)
• Macroeconomics (Prof. Winkler)

Silke Übelmesser

The state is facing a variety of challenges. These include globalization, digitization and demographic change. Policies must take these challenges into account and be designed accordingly. In our research group, we address social policy issues with a focus on redistribution within and between generations against the backdrop of an aging society. In addition, education and migration policies are of great interest to us, as well as gender issues. Examples of research topics in public finance and economic policy include

• Attitudes toward immigration and the role of (mis)information
• Investment in language skills and migration decisions
• Willingness to reform in the context of old-age security
• Gender-related differences over the life cycle

For more information: https://www.fiwi.uni-jena.de/ de.