“Welcome Aboard!”“I am interested in what motivates people to work.”Nucleus professor Iris Kesternich strengthens the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences and the Hamburg Center for Health Economics.

1 September 2022, by Kesternich/Red.

Photo: UHH/Esfandiari

Prof Dr. Iris Kesternich

Every year, Universität Hamburg welcomes numerous new researchers. This series introduces them and their areas of research.

Prof. Dr. Iris Kesternich came to Hamburg after working at the Belgian university KU Leuven and has been working in the Department of Economics in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences since 1 July 2022. She took over the nucleus professorship for economics with a focus on empirical health economics and will be a core member of the Hamburg Center for Health Economics.

My research area in 3 sentences:

My research focuses on health, work, and behavioral economics. I am especially interested in how non-monetary incentives impact health and labor markets. Examples of such incentives are professional norms or the meaningfulness of work.

This is how I explain my research to my children, friends, and family:

Among other things, I am interested in what motivates people to work. In the field of medicine, professional norms, such as the Hippocratic Oath, are important. Furthermore, the meaningfulness of the work plays an important role. What does this mean for salary demands? Are people prepared to forgo their salaries if they can contribute positively to society with their work? Or would they rather be paid better if their work makes an important contribution?

I mainly use these methods:

I always try to use the methods that best suit the respective line of inquiry. I like to collect my own data and combine that with various types of data:  surveys, experiments, historical, and administrative data. At the moment, I am eagerly awaiting my new data from the Netherlands.

In Hamburg, the city and the University, I am looking forward to:

At the University, I am most looking forward to nice colleagues and my new team. I think it’s great that Hamburg is so big and green and that there is so much water. I also look forward to big city life. I hope to go to the opera again soon.

These are my plans at Universität Hamburg; this is what I would like to establish or strengthen:

It is especially important to me to work on further improving the conditions for excellent research in Hamburg. My dream would be to attract the brightest minds from all over the world to Hamburg so that together we can answer the really exciting and important questions.

This is why students should come to my lectures:

Because they will learn to use data to find answers to politically relevant questions.

Reaching out to the world: I work with the following international and federal institutions and universities:

I was a resident visitor at the RAND Corporation for a long time—one of the world’s most famous think tanks. My co-authors work in, among other places, Innsbruck, Leuven, London, Los Angeles, and Tilburg. 

I am looking forward to these opportunities at the University:

Unfortunately, with 2 small children and an exciting job, I have no time for hobbies (except, perhaps, for watching the children’s TV program Sendung mit dem Elefanten.)

My research is important to society, to help resolve the following issues: 

In the field of work economics, my current projects contribute to finding out what we can do to address the current dearth of labor on the one hand and long-term unemployment on the other. I also research how we can reduce differences between men and women on the labor market and within the family. In the field of nursing care, I am interested in how we can shape this in the future and what role non-profits and private homes can play.