Christian Kastrop

Christian Kastrop

Since 2014 Dr Christian Kastrop has held the post of Director of the Policy Studies Branch of the Economics Department of the OECD in Paris. He was formerly Deputy-Director of General Economics and Strategy and Director of the Public Finance, Macroeconomics and Research Directorate in the Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) in Berlin. He studied at the University of Cologne and Harvard University. In 1991 he received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cologne where he worked as scientific assistant on several research projects and as a lecturer from 1984 to 1989.

That same year he joined the MoF, first as a senior economist and was then successively Director of several directorates within the Ministry; Public Finance; EMU and International Affairs.

Major projects on which he worked in his career to date include the European Stability and Growth Pact, the Sustainability and Quality of Public Finance, Fiscal Rules and Institutional Design featuring the new German constitutional Balance Budget Rule (Debt Brake) which is now part of EU governance as well as on the institutional architecture and Global Policy Stance after the financial crisis.

From 2008 to 2010 he served as Chairman of the Economic Policy Committee of European Finance Ministers (ECOFIN-EPC) and of the EPC-Eurogroup in Brussels. From 2011 to 2014 he was Chairman of the OECD’s Senior Budgetary Officials (SBO) Network on performance and results.

He is a Lecturer in National, European and International Public Finance and Fiscal Policy at the Free University of Berlin and Lecturer and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin.