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The following text has been machine translated from the German with no human editing.
Globalization over the past decades has produced both winners and losers. Many people have benefited from trade, migration and European integration. Others, however, see themselves as the victims of these developments and fear economic decline. Consequently, new economic inequalities and political fault lines have emerged, and calls for tariffs, immigration bans and a rollback of international and European integration are growing louder in many places. How are these phenomena linked? What economic and political effects do the various forms of globalization and deglobalization have? Can sound economic policy counteract the negative consequences?
Valentin Lang addresses these questions in his research. To find his answers, he draws on administrative and geographical data, company and individual data and his own surveys, amongst other sources. To analyse this data, he employs modern statistical methods that enable him to draw causal conclusions. At Saarland University, he aims to contribute to the university's focus on Europe through his research and to collaborate on the SOUNDS (Societal Observatory Using Novel Data Sources) project. With regard to Europe , his primary focus is on evaluating various instruments of EU economic policy in the face of current crises and challenges. Together with SOUNDS, he aims to harness new data sources such as satellite imagery and text data to address questions in the field of globalisation research.
In his teaching, Valentin Lang will offer courses in the fields of macroeconomics, economic policy and political economy. A key focus of his teaching will be on current quantitative and empirical research in these fields. Many of his courses will incorporate interdisciplinary elements that bring together different sub-fields of empirical economic and social research. Valentin Lang will take up his post at Saarland University on 1 October 2026.
Short biography
Valentin Lang studied economics, political science and philosophy at the universities of Cambridge, Heidelberg and Paris. After working for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, the University of Heidelberg awarded him a Ph.D. for his thesis on the political economy of international organizations. From 2018 to 2020, he was a senior lecturer at the University of Zurich. Since 2020, he has been a junior lecturer in International Political Economy and Development at the University of Mannheim. Outside academia, he has acted as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the OECD.
