Zohal Hessami is a Professor for Social Policy & Public Economics at the Ruhr-University Bochum, a CESifo Munich Affiliate and an IZA Bonn Research Fellow. She served as President of the European Public Choice Society (2022-24).

She visited Harvard University in 2023, the ifo Institute in 2019, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in 2014 and the University of Cambridge in 2013. She pursued her undergraduate studies at Maastricht University and Université de Montréal and received her Doctorate in Economics from the University of Konstanz in 2011.

She studies political selection, voting behavior, (local) policy choices and public finances, and electoral systems and accountability. Her research has been widely published in journals such as the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Review of Economics and Statistics, European Economic Review, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.

Zohal Hessami joined IZA as a Research Fellow in October 2019.