Tobias Thomas

Tobias Thomas (born April 1975 in Duisburg) is a German economist and Director General of the Austrian Federal Statistical Office (Statistics Austria).

He is also Vice Chair of the Austrian Council of Economic Advisors (Productivity Board), and professor of economics at the Graz Schumpeter Centre at University of Graz.

According to the 2019 ranking of economists by Die Presse, F.A.Z., and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Thomas is the 5th most influential economist in Austria. Since 2020, he has no longer been listed in accordance with the ranking’s regulations due to his position as Director General of Statistics Austria. Thomas is regularly present in national and international media, for example in BusinessDay, Der Standard, Die Presse, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Schweizer Monat, Trend and Wirtschaftswoche. In 2022, Thomas was quoted 1,788 times in Austrian media only (2022: 1,601; 2021: 1,413 times).

Life
Thomas studied economics at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn and Technical University Berlin before earning his doctorate summa cum laude at Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg, where he later also gained his habilitation. Thomas was a visiting scholar at, among others, Columbia University at the invitation of Nobel Laureate in Economics Joseph E. Stiglitz and Anya Schiffrin and at the Max-Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance in Munich at the invitation of Kai A. Konrad. From 2017 to June 2020, he was director of the economic research institute EcoAustria, based in Vienna. Since June 2020, Thomas is Director General of Statistics Austria.

Committees and functions
Thomas is Vice Chair of the Austrian Council of Economic Advisors (“Productivity Board”) and member of the Committee on Economic Policy as well as member of the Committee on Economic Systems and Institutional Economics of the German Economic Association (“Verein für Socialpolitik”). In addition, Thomas is member of the Science Advisory Board of the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH) and Research Affiliate at the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.

Thomas was Lecturer and Professor of Economics at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (2012-2024). He served as Vice President of the Austrian Statistical Society (ÖSG, 2020-2024),  scientific expert at the Austrian Pension Commission (2019-2023) which analyses the financial sustainability of the national pension system, and member of the Commission Future of Statistics (KomZS, 2022-2024) for the strategic planning of the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). In addition, Thomas was Research Fellow at the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS, 2018-2022) of the Central European University (CEU).

Internationally, Thomas represents Austria in the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC), the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), the United Nations Conference of European Statisticians (UNCES), and the OECD Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy (CSSP). Furthermore, Thomas is member of the UNCES task force Changing Role of National Statistical Offices in Data Ecosystems. 2021-2023, he was also elected by the ESS member states to the Partnership Group (ESS-PG), which provides strategic advice to the work of the ESSC. In addition, Thomas was member of the UNCES task force on data stewardship (2021-2023).

Scientific work
In his research at the interface between economics and psychology, Thomas analyses decision processes and behaviour in economic and political contexts. His research interest includes economic policy, public finance, the economics of political reforms as well as the impact of the media on perception and behaviour. His research results on the impact of media coverage on the population's concerns about migration were published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (JEBO); the analysis of the impact of media coverage on voting intentions, his research on the political positioning of the US Newscasts ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX as well as his research on the impact of media coverage on the government bond yield spreads during the European debt crisis in the European Journal of Political Economy (EJPE); his research on the role of the media in democracies in the Constitutional Political Economy (CPE). Other research on improving economic forecasts has been published in the Journal of Forecasting, on policymakers' risk-taking in the context of reform in the Review of Economics, on the economic consequences of reform reluctance in Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, and on climate policy measures and energy forecasts for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in Zeitschrift für Energiewirtschaft. In addition, Thomas focusses in his applied research on the sustainability of public finances and social security systems as well as the competitiveness of economies. Other areas of focus include data science, data governance of complex data ecosystems, as well as building and improving research data infrastructure facilities.

Scientific publications (selection)

 * Hirsch, P., Feld, L. P., Köhler, E. A. & Thomas, T. (2024), Whatever it takes! How Tonality of News affects Government Bond Yield Spreads in the Eurozone. European Journal of Political Economy, available online March 11th, 2024.
 * Fuchs, R., Göllner, T., Hartmann, S. & Thomas, T. (2023), Fostering Excellent Research by the Austrian Micro Data Center (AMDC). Journal of Economics and Statistics/Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, available online July 4th, 2023.
 * Bernhardt, L., Dewenter, R. & Thomas, T. (2023), Measuring partisan media bias in US Newscasts from 2001-2012. European Journal of Political Economy, online first: 20. Januar 2023.
 * Dewenter, R., Dulleck, U., & Thomas, T. (2020). Does the 4th estate deliver? The Political Coverage Index and its application to media capture. Constitutional Political Economy, 31, 292-328.
 * Frondel, M., & Thomas, T. (2020), Dekarbonisierung bis zum Jahr 2050? Klimapolitische Maßnahmen und Energieprognosen für Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz. Zeitschrift für Energiewirtschaft, 44, 195-221.
 * Benesch, C., Loretz, S., Stadelmann, D. & T. Thomas (2019), Media Coverage and Immigration Worries: Econometric Evidence. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 160, 52–67.
 * Dewenter, R., Linder, M. & T. Thomas (2019), Can media drive the electorate? The impact of media coverage on voting intentions. European Journal of Political Economy, 58, 245–261.
 * Berlemann, M. & T. Thomas (2019), The Distance Bias in Natural Disaster Reporting – Empirical Evidence for the United States. Applied Economics Letters, 16, 1026–1032.
 * Strohner, L., Berger, J. & Thomas T. (2018), Ökonomische Folgen der Reformzurückhaltung bei der Beendigung des Solidaritätszuschlags. Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, 19, 313-330
 * Thomas, T., Heß, M. & G. G. Wagner (2017), Reluctant to Reform? A Note on Risk Loving of Politicians and Bureaucrats. Review of Economics, 68, 167–179.
 * Ulbricht, D., Kholodilin, K. & T. Thomas (2017), Do media data help to predict German industrial production? Journal of Forecasting, 36, 483–496.
 * Beckmann, K., Dewenter, R. & T. Thomas (2017), Can news draw blood? The impact of media coverage on the number and severity of terror attacks. Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, 23, 1–16.
 * Dewenter, R., Heimeshoff U. & T. Thomas (2016), Media Coverage and Car Manufacturers’ Sales. Economics Bulletin, 36, 976–982.
 * Thomas, T. (2013): „What price makes a good a status good? Results from a mating game“, in: European Journal of Law and Economics, 36, 35–55.
 * Göbel, M., Schneider, A., & Thomas, T. (2010). Consumption behavior and the aspiration for conformity and consistency. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 3(2), 83–94.