Profile

Christian Ochsner is an Economist with a research focus in quantitative economic history. He is Assistant Professor at CERGE-EI Prague since September 2018. Christian holds a PhD from Dresden University of Technology, Germany (2018). During his PhD studies, Christian was employed as a Junior Economist at the ifo Institute for Economic Research, where he focused on the transition of Eastern Germany, the former socialist GDR. In his research, Christian looks at critical junctures in history and how they matter today. His current research looks on the situation in present-day Austria and investigates how the liberation and zoning of Austria after World War II are still visible in socio-economic figures today. He uses quasi-experimental settings in history and combines econometric techniques and contextualization. Christian is also starting to explore origins of differences in gender norms and behavior.

Courses

• Economic History of Central and Eastern Europe

Get to Know Your Professor in Five Questions

1. How did you become interested in your subject and why did you want to teach it?
   • What I do is a combination of economics, history, social science, applied statistics and a lot of archival data collection. So I like to combination of my research and this is mainly the main motivation to be in academia. But in research, I am also my own boss that can create and manage own projects. And it is great that I can teach courses I am interested into the topic and contribute to this knowledge with my own research.
2. I'm thinking about pursuing a career in your field. What advice can you give me?
   • Probably the advice for any career (unless you want to become a billionaire very soon): You should like what you do. If not, it will be extremely hard to find the motivation to work on some projects for many years. And if you want to work with data, you should not fear them!
3. If you were not an academic, what career would you want to pursue?
   • Creating something with the hands-some real things... Having some good farmland and then run a farm would be nice, but also economically hard. Or being a host of an Alpine hut. Something like that as a very alternative idea.
4. What is your favorite café/restaurant in Prague?
   • Whenever possible, I like to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful sights in and around Prague. In the city of Prague, I like Park na náměstí at Jiřího z Poděbrad. There, you can also find the restaurant U Tellerů that serves a kind of "new Czech cuisine". The best burger, however is the Blue Cheese Burger at Guston. Outside of Prague, the view at Komáří hůrka over northern Bohemia is fantastic.
5. What fictional character would you like to meet?
   • Bob Dylan - he might be real but has truly some fictional elements.