About
Christian Dustmann is Professor of Economics at University College London (UCL), Honorary Professor at Humboldt University Berlin, Director of the ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin Institute for the Economy and the Future of Work (RFBerlin), and Founding Director of the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
Dustmann’s research is concerned with some of the central challenges facing modern labour markets, including migration, technological change, inequality and the role of labour-market institutions. A major strand of his work has transformed our understanding of the economic consequences of migration—how immigrants affect wages, employment and public finances, how they integrate into their host societies, and how migration shapes local communities. His broader research studies how labour-market institutions, technological change and economic shocks affect workers and firms, and how these forces shape careers and inequality over the life cycle. Much of this work combines large-scale administrative data with economic theory and modern empirical methods to identify causal relationships and uncover the mechanisms behind them. His research has influenced academic and policy debates in Europe and beyond, and he regularly advises governments and international organisations on migration, labour markets and economic policy.
Alongside his research, Dustmann has played a leading role in building institutions and international research communities. He founded CReAM at UCL and is the founding Director of RFBerlin. From 2009 to 2014, he served as Scientific Director of the NORFACE Research Programme on Migration, a major interdisciplinary European research initiative comprising 12 transnational projects and more than 100 researchers, including 65 funded PhD students. Bringing together economists, sociologists, demographers and researchers from other social-science disciplines, the programme created an unprecedented Europe-wide network for migration research and played an important role in shaping the subsequent development of the field in Europe. He also co-founded the Asian and Australasian Society of Labour Economics (AASLE), which has developed into a major international association for labour economists across Asia and Australasia, and served as its President from 2017 to 2021. Across these activities, he has placed particular emphasis on supporting young scholars and creating opportunities for early-career researchers to develop ambitious research, interact with established scholars and build international networks.
Dustmann has held visiting professorships at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University and Yale University. He has served as President of the European Association of Labour Economists (EALE) and the European Society for Population Economics (ESPE). He is an elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Academia Europaea, the Academy of Social Sciences, the Econometric Society and the Society of Labor Economists (SOLE).
In 2020, Dustmann received the Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Prize from the German National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his contributions to addressing major societal challenges through research, becoming the first economist to receive the award. In 2023, he was awarded the Reimar Lüst Prize for International Science and Cultural Communication by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. In the 2019 research ranking of the German Economic Association (Verein für Socialpolitik), he ranked first among economists in German-speaking countries and German economists working abroad.