WIFO Says Goodbye to Christoph Badelt

Photo credits: © Federal Economic Chamber/Knopp.

Host and WIFO President Harald Mahrer (Austrian Economic Chamber), his Vice-President Renate Anderl (Federal Chamber of Labour), and the works council representatives Helmut Mahringer and Irene Langer (WIFO) thanked Badelt for his outstanding commitment to WIFO and economic policy consulting in Austria. It was not without reason that the institute had once again left the strongest footprint in the recently published "Presse" ranking of the most influential economists. Christoph Badelt was second place in the overall ranking and first place in the media ranking.

In addition to Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler, Minister of Labour Martin Kocher and the WIFO Executive Board, numerous other representatives from politics, research and business were present.

WIFO's employees also took the opportunity to say goodbye to their director.

In his farewell speech, Christoph Badelt spoke about the beneficial interrelationship between economic research and economic policy consulting. "The market for economic policy advice has changed significantly in recent years. This change has also been fostered by the political system. The diversity and fuzzy boundaries of the market for scientific advice puts the focus on ensuring the quality of scientific advice", he said.

© Federal Economic Chamber/Knopp

  
According to Christoph Badelt, the funding of research institutes is an important key to the scientific quality of their work, and thus also to political independence: "Funding like that in the German Leibniz Association would be the best precaution for safeguarding scientific research institutes in a political system that is increasingly yielding to the temptation of populism."

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic containment measures, entry to the event was only possible in compliance with the "3‑G rule" (short for German "geimpft, getestet, genesen – vaccinated, tested, recovered").