Eye on Alumni: Niels Krieghoff '08
Niels Krieghoff (Economics) is a PhD student at the London School of Economics and a Research Fellow at the University of Bonn. His work in Economic History focuses on German and American banking regulation from 1930-1960.
Banking regulation is certainly on everyone's minds these days. Is history repeating itself?
Just recently I read a newspaper accounts stemming from the aftermath of the German financial crisis of 1931. If I hadn’t known that it was a piece from that time, I would certainly have thought that it was an article from today's times. Much the same issues they were discussing back then, such as banker's bonuses, excessive risk-taking, a lack of business-ethics, etc., are being discussed today as well. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme indeed.
Give us a snapshot of PhD life.
Each day is different. Obviously I spend quite some time in the (gorgeous) LSE library or the (pink) PhD lab, slaving over books and other resources. There are PhD and department workshops I attend, as well as courses to deepen my knowledge in areas such as quantitative methods or even rhetoric. Last but not least there are the LSE public lectures, which I try to go to as often as possible.
What "GSE wisdom" have you brought with you to London?
I am making good use of my courses on International Economics, International Finance and Economic History - they have provided me with state of the art overviews of the latest research, which has given me a good head start into my own research. I also believe that the course on Behavioral Decision Making has quite drastically influenced my view of the world and how I interpret events.
However, I probably benefited the most from all my fellow students from Barcelona GSE. They were a truly magnificient group and I continue to be in close contact with many of them.
One fellow student in particular, we hear...
Yes, it turns out that I'm getting married to
Acácia Reiche '08, whom I got to know at Barcelona GSE - she did the master program in
Economics of Science and Innovation the same year I was doing the Economics program. She's still working in Barcelona [as a project manager at IMIM Foundation for medical research], which is nice because I just love coming back to Barcelona and do so quite regularly.
Any tips to share with GSE grads who will begin their PhDs next year?
One thing I've realized is how much it matters to be in the right place with the right people to talk to. For example, it really makes a big difference if two or three other PhD students or professors are working on a related topic. They can give you much more concise inputs and feedback. Also, in their own research they might come across things that might be interesting for me and vice versa. In this short time at LSE I have benefitted tremendously from this kind of cooperation.
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