History
The House of Finance (HOF) was established in 2008 to unite and crossfertilize various departments and institutions dedicated to money and finance at Goethe University Frankfurt. The establishment of HOF in a new building at the university’s Westend campus granted the city of Frankfurt – Germany’s leading financial hub – with a unique center of excellence. HOF strives to foster cutting-edge interdisciplinary research on money and finance as well as to share associated findings with policymakers, financial market actors, and the lay public.
As HOF opened its doors in 2008, it bundled expertise from three university departments, three research centers, and two schools, including the Center of Financial Studies (CFS), the E-Finance Lab (EFL), the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS), the Institute for Law and Finance (ILF), and Goethe Business School (GBS).
HOF quickly rose to become a highly visible place of gathering for international thought leaders in the domains of academia, politics, and business. This rapid rise to prominence was attributable in no small part to HOF’s various high-ranking conferences and events, including the “ECB and Its Watchers Conference,” the ILF conferences on “The Future of the Financial Sector,” and the CFS Presidential Lectures. In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the HOF Policy Platform was established to augment the dissemination of relevant research findings to regulators and experts.
Academics from the House of Finance have served on prominent political advisory and expert committees. By way of example, Jan Krahnen served on the Liikanen Commission, which examined the reorganization of the European banking sector in the wake of the GFC, and Volker Wieland has been a long-standing member of the German Council of Economic Experts.
In 2010, HOF welcomed the International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR), which examines insurance markets and associated regulatory arrangements, both within Germany and abroad. Another major milestone in HOF’s history was the 2013 launch of a new center of excellence called “Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe” (SAFE). SAFE’s mission is to generate insights concerning the factors that contribute to resilient and effective financial markets and institutions, as well as to communicate research findings to decision-makers in the public and private sectors. With the establishment of SAFE, the House of Finance gained five professorships, thirteen assistance professorships, and numerous research assistants. In 2019 SAFE was made part of the renowned Leibniz Association. This augmentation of academic excellence at the House of Finance has benefitted all affiliated institutions, including the Graduate School for Economics, Management, and Finance (GSEFM), which joined the House of Finance in 2015. GSEFM offers quantitative and research-oriented doctoral programs.
2018 witnessed the establishment of “Foundations of Law and Finance” (LawFin), a DFG research group that aims to promote consilience between the two major disciplines that make up the House of Finance. To be sure, the work undertaken by LawFin only represents a cross-section of the interdisciplinary activities being pursued at the House of Finance, for HOF researchers regularly collaborate with scholars from a broad range of fields at Goethe University Frankfurt, including economics and business administration.
For more details on the departments, schools, and institutions that make up the House of Finance, please click here.
