IHS to name new head in September
Officials at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) said today (Fri) that they were aiming to appoint a successor of current chief Bernhard Felderer this autumn.The think tank revealed that 14 economists and business experts have applied for the post. The deadline for applications was last Tuesday.”A company-internal committee will meet to discuss the applications next month. We hope to come to an agreement in September,” a spokesman for the Viennese think tank said.Felderer became head of the IHS in 1991. His contract expires next year. The conservative economist announced last year that he will not apply for another term. Felderer, 69, said he could imagine writing a book.The Austrian press seems to believe that economist Christian Keuschnigg, who currently lectures at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, is in with a good chance of taking over from Felderer.The IHS was founded in 1963. It has around 100 employees. The institution is considered to be Austrias leading think tank alongside Karl Aiginger’s Institute for Economic Research (WIFO).The IHS is subsidised by the federal economy ministry, the Austrian National Bank (OeNB) and the city of Vienna.It predicted last December that the Austrian inflation rate will range around two per cent in 2011 before dropping to 1.8 per cent the next year. IHS analysis also suggests that the countrys gross domestic product (GDP) will climb by 2.1 per cent year on year this year and by 2.3 per cent compared to 2011.