Dennis J. Snower is a nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution and president of the Global Solutions Initiative, which provides policy advice to the G20 and G7 from year to year. He is also a professorial research fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford University; and a visiting professor at University College, London.
Furthermore, he is a research fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research (London), at IZA (Institute for the Future of Work, Bonn), and CESifo (Munich).
Dennis J. Snower was born in Vienna, Austria, where he went to the American International School. He earned a bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New College, Oxford University, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Princeton University. He was professor of economics at Birkbeck College, University of London and later served as president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, where he is now a president emeritus.
He is an expert on labor economics, public policy, and inflation-unemployment tradeoffs. He is currently active in research on measuring well-being beyond GDP and designing a new framework for human-centric digital governance. Together with David Sloan Wilson, he is developing a new paradigm for economics, based on multi-level Darwinian evolution.
As part of his research career, he originated the “insider-outsider” theory of employment and unemployment with Assar Lindbeck; “caring economics” with Tania Singer; the theory of “high-low search” with Steve Alpern; the “chain reaction theory of unemployment” and the theory of “frictional growth” with Marika Karanassou and Hector Sala. He has made seminal contributions to the design of employment subsidies and welfare accounts. He has published extensively on employment policy, the design of welfare systems, and monetary and fiscal policy.
He has been a visiting professor at many universities around the world, including Columbia, Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard, the European University Institute, Stockholm University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Furthermore, he has advised a variety of international organizations and national governments on macroeconomic policy, employment policy and welfare state policy.
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Current Positions
- Founder and President, Global Solutions Initiative
- Senior Professor of Macroeconomics and Sustainability, Hertie School, Berlin
- Senior Research Fellow, Blavatnik School of Governance, Oxford University
- Visiting Professor, University College, London
- President Emeritus, Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy)
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Past Positions
- President, Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy) (2004-2019)
- Program Director, Labor Markets and Institutions, IZA Institute of Labor Economics (2004)
- Program Director, Welfare State and Labor Markets, IZA Institute of Labor Economics (1999-2004)
- Program Director, Public Policy, Centre for Economic Policy Research (1998-1999)
- Program Director, Human Resources, Centre for Economic Policy Research (1998-1999)
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Education
- M.A. (1973) and Ph.D. (1975), Princeton University
- B.A. (1971) and M.A., New College, Oxford University