The economist Elga Bartsch is to head the economic policy department in Robert Habeck’s (Greens) Federal Ministry of Economics. The economist most recently worked for the asset management company Blackrock, as the ministry said on Tuesday.
She is therefore an expert on the risks of climate change for the economy and their economic modelling. The cabinet still has to confirm the personnel.
With Bartsch, the ministry is gaining “deep macroeconomic expertise, including fiscal policy and monetary policy,” it said. She has extensive international experience.
Bartsch began her career in 1992 at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and has also worked at the US investment bank Morgan Stanley. At Blackrock, she headed economics and capital market research at the asset manager’s Investment Institute until the end of June. Ministry officials said she left at her own request to take longer unpaid leave.
The personnel is part of a comprehensive restructuring of the ministry. Habeck is setting it up “more precisely” “in order to keep up and strengthen the clout in fighting the energy and economic crisis and to shape future tasks,” it said.
