We are deeply sorry that Ansgar Belke passed away on July 22, 2020. Until his death he was Full Professor of Macroeconomics and Director of the Institute of Business and Economic Studies (IBES) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He was member of the Adjunct Faculty Ruhr Graduate School in Economics(RGS Econ) and visiting professor at the Europa-Institute at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, and the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin.

Ansgar Belke was visiting researcher at the IMF in Washington/DC, CentER Tilburg, CEPS Brussels, IfW Kiel, DIW Berlin and OeNB Vienna. Furthermore, he was Research Director for International Macroeconomics at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin, and Research Professor at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels.

He was President of the European Economics and Finance Society (EEFS), member of the "Monetary Expert Panel" of the European Parliament, the Scientific Advisory Council of IAW Tübingen, the Councils of "Arbeitskreis Europäische Integration" (AEI), the "Institut für Europäische Politik" (IEP), the Executive Committee of the International Atalantic Economic Society (IAES) and the Scientific Committee of the International Network for Economic Research (INFER). He was also Research Fellow of IZA Bonn and CELSI (Bratislava), member of the professional central bank watchers group "ECB Observer", member of the Bureau of European Policy Analysis (BEPA) Visitors Programme of the European Commission, external consultant of DG ECFIN of the European Commission, external consultant of the European Union Committee of the House of Lords (UK) and he successfully conducted research projects on behalf of the German Federal Ministries of Finance, and of Labour and Social Affairs.

He served as editor-in-chief of "Credit and Capital Markets – Kredit und Kapital", "Konjunkturpolitik – Applied Economics Quarterly" and as co-editor of "International Journal of Financial Studies", "Empirica", "International Economics and Economic Policy", "Journal of Economic Studies", "Vierteljahreshefte für Wirtschaftsforschung", "Aestimatio – The International IEB Journal of Finance", "E-conomics" (Kiel Institute of the World Economy), as editor of the book series "Financial and Monetary Policy Studies", Springer, and as co-editor of the book series "Quantitative Ökonomie", Eul Verlag.

He published widely in international refereed journals and other outlets, has regular appearances in the printed press and in national and international TV broadcasts. He spoke as keynote lecturer at a wide array of conferences, among them in 2010 the "Jeddah Economic Forum", Jeddah/Saudi-Arabia, the "Global Economic Forum", Istanbul/Turkey, and the international conference "Policies for Growth and Financial Stability beyond the Crisis – The Scope for Global Cooperation", Mumbai/India, in 2012 the "Asan Plenum" and "The Economist Bellwether Series Conference", both in Seoul/South Korea, in 2014 the "Greek Government Roundtable" in Athens/Greece and in 2014 as Plenary Speaker the ECOMOD Conference in Bali/Bank of Indonesia.

His main areas of interest were in the fields of international macroeconomics, monetary economics, European integration and applied econometrics.

Handelsblatt-Ranking Volkswirtschaftslehre 2015
Aktuelle Forschungsleistung: ranked 11 out of 3600
Lebenswerk: ranked 60 out of 3600

Repec/Ideas Ranking February 2016:
Germany: ranked 25 out of 3698 (Top 1%)
Europe: ranked 118 out of 24168 (Top 1%)

Ansgar Belke joined IZA as a Research Fellow in January 2004. His contributions to the success of the IZA Network will be greatly missed.