The climate needs bright minds. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) addresses crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts and sustainable development. It is one of the world's leading research institutions in its field and offers natural and social scientists from around the world an inspiring environment for excellent interdisciplinary research.
To strengthen its research capacity in causal climate policy evaluation in the newly established FutureLab “CERES: Political Economy for Inclusive Wealth Governance and Sustainability”, PIK is offering a
Postdoctoral position in “Welfare Economics” (m/f/d)
(Position number: 15-2022-PostDoc Welfare Econ)
in the field of environmental economics, with a starting date summer/autumn 2022.
The position is funded for 3 years. Remuneration is in accordance with the German public tariff scheme (TV-L Brandenburg), salary group E 13. This is a full-time position with a weekly working time of 40 hours.
The successful candidate will be involved in a joint research project with Prof. Dr. Matthias Kalkuhl (MCC Berlin and University of Potsdam), Prof. Dr. Jan Steckel (MCC Berlin and TU Cottbus) and Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer (MCC, PIK and TU Berlin).
Key responsibilities:
- Develop analytical and quantitative models of wealth accounting and welfare metrics that combine inclusive wealth approaches (genuine wealth concepts) with distributional and non-market aspects of well-being,
- Apply models to empirical data on physical, natural and human capital as well as income and wealth distribution to derive comparable wealth measures for developing and developed countries,
- Publish in leading economics and interdisciplinary journals.
Requirements:
- PhD in economics, with background in environmental economics, natural resource economics, growth economics or welfare economics,
- Excellent analytical and mathematical skills related to welfare and environmental economic issues (e.g. dynamic optimization),
- Analytical skills related to public economic analyses are an asset,
- Experience with overlapping generation models, genuine wealth approaches, natural capital valuation or valuation of ecosystem services is an asset but not mandatory,
- Experience with mathematical and data processing software (e.g. R, Stata, Matlab) is an asset.
We expect:
- High motivation to work on policy-relevant research topics related to sustainable development,
- High interest in teamwork and collaborative research,
- The ability to work independently and on your own initiative,
- A high level of competence in oral and written English,
- Structured and goal-oriented thinking,
- Creativity and openness to new approaches.
We offer:
- an inspiring, international and interdisciplinary work environment in a world leading research institute on Potsdam's beautiful, historic Telegrafenberg campus, a short commuting distance from Berlin,
- working in a dedicated and motivated team with very supportive colleagues and a well-established international research network,
- meaningful involvement in a research project of immediate policy relevance,
- access to high-performance cluster computer,
- flexi-time and mobile working (up to 40% of your hours),
- a collective pay scheme and associated benefits as well as a subsidized travel card.
PIK seeks to increase the share of women in scientific positions and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply. In cases of equal qualification and within the given legal scope, women will be given preference. Applications by persons with a migration background are expressly encouraged. Applications of disabled persons with equal qualifications will be regarded favourably. PIK also encourages applications by parents returning from parental leave.