MCC researcher Hannah Klauber honoured with the German Thesis Award

Today, economist Hannah Klauber receives a remarkable award: the German Thesis Award from the renowned Körber-Stiftung foundation. As a postdoc in the Policy Evaluation Lab of the Berlin-based climate research institute MCC (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change), Klauber is researching the effectiveness of policy instruments. She is receiving the prize for a study she conducted as part of her doctoral thesis on the health effects of low emission zones. The patron of the prize is the President of the German parliament, Bärbel Bas.

The study was published in May of this year in the prestigious journal American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (see MCC press release and link to the study here). It breaks new ground in evaluating environmental and climate policy. For the first time, it scientifically quantifies the long-term benefits of urban low emission zones for children’s health, drawing on anonymised patient data from Germany’s largest health insurance association AOK. The Körber-Stiftung, which was founded in 1959 by the mechanical engineering entrepreneur Kurt A. Körber, considers the study to be of particular social relevance.

Klauber wrote her doctoral thesis at MCC and the Technische Universität Berlin. She was honoured with the German Thesis Award as the first-place winner in the Social Sciences section. Prizes are also awarded in the categories Natural and Technical Sciences as well as Cultural Sciences and Humanities. With 25,000 euros each for the first prize winners and 5,000 euros for two runners-up in each section, it is one of the most highly endowed prizes awarded to young scientists in the country.

Further information
Press release of the Körber-Stiftung foundation on the German Thesis Award 2024 (German):
https://koerber-stiftung.de/projekte/deutscher-studienpreis/preistraeger-innen-2024/