The House of Finance mourns the loss of Bernd Spahn

Bernd Spahn was Professor of Public Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt until 2005. After studying economics at the universities of Frankfurt/Main, Paris-Sorbonne, Rio de Janeiro (Universidade do Brasil) and Berlin (FU), where he received his doctorate in 1972, he worked for various research institutions and universities as well as the OECD before being appointed professor at Goethe University in 1979. From 1986 to 1987, he was Vice President of Goethe University.

In September 2006, he was appointed Managing Director of the House of Finance, which had just been conceived by Goethe University and the State of Hesse as an international hub for financial research in Germany's leading financial center. Spahn accompanied the construction phase of the House of Finance and the move in of the three departments of Goethe University Frankfurt - Finance, Monetary and Macroeconomics and Corporate and Financial Law - as well as several research institutes under one roof. He was particularly committed to developing the conceptual foundations of the House of Finance, which emphasise interdisciplinarity, excellence in research and teaching and knowledge transfer. He was also involved in developing executive education at the House of Finance not least by supporting the Goethe Business School (founded in 2004) and the Institute for Law and Finance (founded in 2002), where he was an academic teacher until 2014. When he left the House of Finance in June 2008, he continued to work as an economic advisor to governments and international institutions.

Rainer Klump, Executive Director of the House of Finance, expressed his gratitude for the work of the first Director of the House of Finance: “The House of Finance will honor the memory of Bernd Spahn, to whom it owes a successful start as one of the leading institutions in financial research worldwide.”