Lecture series of the internationally renowned public finance expert is to focus on the European Monetary Union and the future of the European Community from an economic perspective
04.12.2012
What future course will the European Monetary Union take in the face of massive government over-indebtedness? Does it have an inherent birth defect in the form of a lack of closer fiscal union? How do the joint actions taken by creditor nations work to 'rescue' the debtor nations? The holder of the 2013 Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship, Professor Dr. Gerold Krause-Junk, will discuss current public finance and economic policy issues in his summer semester 2013 lecture series at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The internationally highly respected public finance expert from Hamburg and his prominent guests will be conducting a well-informed debate on the economic rationale behind European integration under the title "European Monetary Union – Expectations, Experience, Prospects". The starting point for this will be the European Single Market, its economic objectives, and the conditions for its success. How did it come to the current financial crisis and how can this be resolved? As a long-standing member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Junk has extensive experience as a business and financial expert and is well acquainted with the history and background to the European Monetary Union and today's financial crisis.
"Gerold Krause-Junk is one of the leading German public finance experts," stated Peter Radermacher, Chairman of the Friends of Mainz University association. "In view of his extraordinary academic achievements, Professor Dr. Gerold Krause-Junk is eminently suited to comment on controversial economic and financial policy issues, to provide fresh impetus to the current discussion, and to provide answers to these future-related issues. In that he will knowledgeably and competently guide the opinion formation process among the general public through his lecture series, Gerold Krause-Junk ideally meets the requirements of our Endowed Professorship."
Years of scholarship and study of global financial structures
"As Professor Emeritus for International Finance, Gerold Krause-Junk can independently and accurately analyze and discuss the difficulties and opportunities facing the European Monetary Union, even more so since has no ties with any financial institutions or parties, banks or companies. His years of scholarship and study of global financial structures have given him a broad outlook and the ability to discuss controversial subjects so that they are made comprehensible to the general public while retaining their complexity," said the Chairman of the Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship Foundation, Professor Dr. Andreas Cesana. "The fact that we have awarded the 2013 Endowed Professorship to Gerold Krause-Junk represents a continuation of the Endowed Professorship given to Hans-Dietrich Genscher in 2002, who gave a lecture series entitled Europe on the Path to a New World Order, in which he and his guests discussed the then still new Euro and the European Monetary Union.
Professor Dr. Gerold Krause-Junk, born in 1936 in Breslau, studied economics in Hanover and Münster. After completing his dissertation in 1965 and obtaining his postdoctoral lecturing qualification in 1969, he worked as Professor of Finance at the Free University Berlin and at Hamburg University up to his retirement in 2003. His research focuses on welfare theory, tax policy, and international financial structures. Gerold Krause-Junk is a member of the International Institute of Public Finance, the Academic Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Finance, which he chaired from 1995 to 1999, and the "Alternative Tax-Transfer Systems" expert commission.
The Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship at Mainz University is reserved for outstanding scientists and internationally renowned figures. With it, the sponsoring Association of the Friends of Mainz University aims to promote the university's reputation and attractiveness beyond national borders and to break new ground. Following on from Fritz Stern, Bert Hölldobler, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Wolfgang Frühwald, Klaus Töpfer, Peter Ruzicka, Anton Zeilinger, Fritz Melchers, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Angela D. Friederici, Gottfried Boehm and Friedemann Schrenk, Gerold Krause-Junk is the next figure of international renown to come to Mainz for the 2013 Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship.
Providing a rational approach to current economic policy debate
"This year's Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship will be focusing specifically on the dialog between academics on the one hand and business, politics, and society on the other hand. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz has found the ideal way to link these perspectives in the person of Gerold Krause-Junk, who can both guide the opinion formation process and provide a more rational approach to the current economic policy debate. The 2013 Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship will thus help promote the knowledge transfer policy we have adopted here at Mainz University by enabling society in general to benefit from the findings of academic research," stressed the President of Johannes Gutenberg University, Professor Dr. Georg Krausch.
The Association of Friends of Mainz University established the Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship in the year 2000 on the occasion of Johannes Gutenberg's 600th birthday. The following have held the endowed professorship so far: cultural historian and recipient of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Fritz Stern (2000), the leading representative of evolutionary biology and pioneer of sociobiology Bert Hölldobler (2001), former German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (2002), former President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Wolfgang Frühwald (2003), former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Klaus Töpfer (2004), composer and conductor Peter Ruzicka (2005), Viennese experimental physicist Anton Zeilinger (2006), immunologist Fritz Melchers (2007), literary and social scientist Jan Philipp Reemtsma (2008), Cardinal Karl Lehmann (2009), neuropsychologist and cognitive scientist Angela D. Friederici (2010), cultural historian and image scientist Gottfried Boehm (2011), and paleoanthropologist Friedemann Schrenk (2012).