In Memoriam of Gerhard Palme

05.06.2020

WIFO Mourns a Distinctive Researcher and Colleague

Professor Gerhard Palme passed away unexpectedly on 2 June 2020 at the age of 77. From 1981 to 2008, he worked as a senior economist at WIFO's regional economics department. His work has shaped the perception on the importance of space and region-specific context for economic development – within the institute, but also far beyond.

"With the demise of Gerhard Palme, WIFO and the Austrian regional policy has lost a distinctive personality – but his influence on the thinking of many will remain. At the institute, he will be remembered as a committed and helpful colleague with a strong team spirit and high motivation. Many of the institute's employees, especially the younger ones, have benefitted from his often critical, but always helpful and constructive comments. The news of his passing has therefore caused deep consternation at the institute. On behalf of all our colleagues, we would like to express our deepest sympathy to his partner and his family", the WIFO management states.

After studying geography, history, business administration and spatial planning at the Universities of Vienna, Linz and the Vienna University of Technology, Gerhard Palme started his professional career at the Institute for Urban and Regional Research at the Vienna University of Technology and subsequently worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Awarded the August-Lösch-Prize, the most prestigious prize for regional studies in the German-speaking world, at an early stage, Palme moved to the Austrian Institute of Economic Research in 1981, where he was a senior economist in the Research Group "Structural Change and Regional Development" until his retirement in 2008.

In his long-lasting career, Gerhard Palme authored around 160 publications, most of which testify to a strong inclination towards deep conceptual thinking. Many of his findings have continuous relevance, namely his product-cyclical view of sectoral and regional developments, his empirical evidence for typological differences in regions and their consequences for sectoral and regional policies, his insights on the importance of innovation for regional development, and last but not least on the effects of integration processes on cities and regions. He has always been keen to pass on these ideas to younger generations, demonstrated by his many years of teaching at the University of Vienna and his textbook "Wirtschaftsgeographie" ("Economic Geography"), written in collaboration with Robert Musil.

At WIFO, Gerhard Palme's alert and critical spirit has always been a driving force of intellectual discourse, his personality commanding respect, consistently defending his positions and getting at the heart of issues. At the same time, however, he was a profoundly amiable and sensitive person – a colleague in the truest sense of the word on whom one could fully rely and who, showing a high level of social intelligence, contributed a great deal to building a strong and committed research area team in which researchers and research assistants were dedicated to collaborative work. This is how we will remember Gerhard Palme.

Please contact

Markus Kiesenhofer, BA, MA

Activities: Public relations, Coordinator Communication Division
© W. Schwarz
© W. Schwarz