Dr. Felix Rusche
Research Focus:
My research interests span labor, development, and political economy. I am particularly interested in the socioeconomic effects of modern and traditional media as well as in social norms and discrimination. Beyond my topical focus, I am interested in the development of new methods to both accurately identify economic effects and draw insights from unconventional or unstructured data.
Academic Career:
2025–: Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics, Germany
2019–25: PhD (Dr. rer. pol.) in Economics, University of Mannheim, Germany
2023: Research Stay, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
2016–19: MSc in Economics, University of Mannheim, Germany
2018: Visiting student, Bocconi University, Italy
2012–16: BA in Applied Economics, Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, Germany
2014: Visiting student, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa
Publications:
Evsyukova, Y., Rusche, F., & Mill, W. (2025). LinkedOut? A field experiment on discrimination in job network formation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 140(1), 283-334.
Rusche, F. (2024). Few voices, strong echo: Measuring follower homogeneity of politicians’ Twitter accounts. new media & society, 26(6), 3514-3540.
Publications as Contributing Author:
Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences. Nature 652, 135–142.
with the SCORE collaboration (450+ co-authors)
Working Papers:
Rusche, F. (2025). Reporting Big News, Missing the Big Picture? Stock Market Performance in the Media. MPI Discussion Paper 2025/4.
Rusche, F. (2025). Broadcasting Change: India’s Community Radio Policy and Women’s Empowerment. MPI Discussion Paper 2025/5.