Pia Pinger

Prof. Dr. Pia Pinger is a Full Professor of Economics at the University of Cologne, specifically within the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences (WiSo-Fakultät) and the Department of Economics. She has held this position since 2019 and serves as a Cluster Faculty Member and Speaker of the excellence cluster ECONtribute - Markets & Public Policy. Dr. Pinger is also a Principal Investigator in the Center for Social and Economic Behavior (C-SEB) and the Collaborative Research Center Economic Perspectives on Societal Challenges. Her institutional affiliations include IZA Research Fellow and CESifo Affiliate status.

Dr. Pinger earned her PhD from the University of Mannheim in 2013, following research positions at the University of Mannheim and the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). Prior to her current role, she served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn (2013-2019) and completed visiting scholar appointments at the University of Chicago.

Her research program focuses on human capital and socioeconomic inequalities, with particular emphasis on educational decision-making, early childhood health, applied microeconometrics, and behavioral economics. Dr. Pinger investigates how socioeconomic background influences educational and labor market outcomes through rigorous empirical analysis using natural experiments and causal inference methods. Her work examines gender wage gaps, decision-making at critical life junctures, and the formation of economic preferences from childhood, providing insights into inequality mechanisms and potential policy interventions.

Dr. Pinger's publication record reveals a consistent focus on socioeconomic inequality across the life course, with recent work examining gender differences in wage expectations (2024), socioeconomic status effects on children's cognitive development (2021), and causal evidence on prosocial behavior formation (2020). Her research spans labor economics, health economics, and behavioral economics, often connecting micro-level decision-making to broader societal outcomes through sophisticated econometric techniques.

• ERC Starting Grant (2023) - €1.5 million for OPPORTUNITY project
• Prize for best dissertation in education economics (2015)
• Karin Islinger dissertation award (2014)
• Dissertation prize 'The Future of Labor' (2014)
• HCEO Emerging Scholar designation (2014)
• Elected to 'Ausschuss für Bildungsökonomie' (2017)

As a Principal Investigator in multiple research centers, Dr. Pinger leads collaborative projects examining economic behavior and policy. Her ERC-funded OPPORTUNITY project represents a major research initiative analyzing how ability signals like grades influence educational trajectories based on socioeconomic background. She actively contributes to academic discourse through media appearances in Süddeutsche Zeitung, DER SPIEGEL, and multiple podcasts addressing educational inequality and economic decision-making. Recent press releases indicate ECONtribute's funding extension through 2025, highlighting the ongoing significance of her research environment.