Isabel Schnabel


Isabel Schnabel is a German economist. She became professor of financial economics at the University of Bonn in 2015 and a member of the German Council of Economic Experts in 2014. She worked previously at the University of Mainz from 2007 to 2015.

Early life and education

Schnabel began her studies in Economics at the University of Mannheim, Paris I and the University of California, Berkeley, back in 1992 after completing her training as a bank clerk at Deutsche Bank in Dortmund.

Career

Career in academia

After receiving her diploma in 1998, Schnabel started her doctorate studies in the graduate program "Allocation on financial markets" at the Department of Economics, University of Mannheim until 2003. That same year, she also wrote a dissertation, Macroeconomic Risks and Financial Crises – A Historical Perspective, under the supervision of Martin Hellwig. Following that, she then worked as a student research assistant to Axel Börsch-Supan while she completed internships at Deutsche Bank in Saint Petersburg and Frankfurt. For the next three years, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn.
In 2007 Schnabel became a Professor of Financial Economics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. In 2014 she was appointed as member of the German Council of Economic Experts and started teaching Financial Economics at the University of Bonn in 2015.

Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, 2019–present

Following a proposal of Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, the German government nominated Schnabel to the European Central Bank’s executive board in 2019, replacing Sabine Lautenschläger. Shortly after, the Eurogroup supported Schnabel’s candidacy for a non-renewable 8-year term.
On the Executive Board, Schnabel is responsible for market operations. In this capacity, she oversees the ECB's 2.6 trillion-euro quantitative easing program.

Other activities

Regulatory agencies

Schnabel is considered to have moderate views on monetary policy. In early 2019, she strongly advised against a possible merger of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank.

Recognition

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