Isabella Weber

{{Infobox person

| name = Isabella Weber

| image = Professor Isabella Weber 2024 (sq cropped).jpg

| alt =

| caption = Professor Isabella Weber in 2024 at UNCTAD conference

| birth_date = 1987

| birth_place = Nuremberg, Germany

| death_date =

| death_place =

| education = The New School (PhD), University of Cambridge (PhD), Freie Universität Berlin (BA)

| occupation = {{hlist | Economist | professor }}

| years_active =

| notable_works =

| known_for = Sellers' inflation

}}

Isabella M. Weber (born 1987 in Nuremberg, Germany{{cite web |title=Abstract: Das westdeutsche und das chinesische »Wirtschaftswunder« |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/sites/default/files/uploads/files/2020-02/4_jhk_2020_weber_55_69.pdf |access-date=2022-05-05}} (PDF-Datei) Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, Februar 2020.) is a German economist. She is an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.{{Cite web |url=https://www.umass.edu/economics/about/directory/isabella-weber |title=Isabella Weber |publisher=University of Massachusetts Amherst |access-date=2025-03-16}}

Weber became more widely known for having taken a position in favor of a price control policy. Her op-ed published in The Guardian in December 2021{{cite news |last1=Weber |first1=Isabella |date=29 December 2021 |title=Could strategic price controls help fight inflation? |language=en |newspaper=The Guardian |location=Kings Place, London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/dec/29/inflation-price-controls-time-we-use-it |access-date=14 June 2023}} caused an uproar among economists,{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Zachary |title=What if We're Thinking About Inflation All Wrong? |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/what-if-were-thinking-about-inflation-all-wrong |access-date=14 June 2023 |newspaper=The New Yorker |publisher=Condé Nast |date=6 June 2022 |location=New York City |language=en}} including Paul Krugman, who later apologized for his tone. Weber's thoughts around focusing more on what she calls "sellers' inflation" (instead of focusing on increased demand) have become more popular and mainstream by 2023, especially in Europe.{{Cite news |last=Carter |first=Zachary |date=2023-06-06 |title=What if We’re Thinking About Inflation All Wrong? |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/what-if-were-thinking-about-inflation-all-wrong |access-date=2024-08-29 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}} In additional to price caps and strict anti-price gouging legislation to combat inflation, she also supports windfall profit taxes.

Career

Weber completed her undergraduate studies in political science and economics at the Freie Universität Berlin. Weber received a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2018. Her thesis was titled China's Escape from the 'Big-Bang': The 1980s Price Reform Debate in Historical Perspective and advised by Peter Nolan.{{Cite web|last=Weber |first=Isabella Maria |date=2018-03-24 |title=China's Escape from the "Big Bang": The 1980s Price Reform Debate in Historical Perspective |url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/271826 |language=en}} She received a second PhD, in Economics, from the New School for Social Research in 2019.{{Cite web |title=Isabella Weber {{!}} Department of Economics {{!}} UMass Amherst |url=https://www.umass.edu/economics/about/directory/isabella-weber |access-date=2025-03-16 |website=www.umass.edu}}

From 2017 to 2019, Weber was a lecturer in Economics at Goldsmiths, University of London.{{Cite web |date=2017-09-02 |title=IMS staff, Goldsmiths, University of London |url=http://www.gold.ac.uk/institute-management-studies/staff |access-date=2023-06-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170902191924/http://www.gold.ac.uk/institute-management-studies/staff |archive-date=2 September 2017 }} In 2019, she became assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.{{Cite web |title=Isabella Weber {{!}} Department of Economics {{!}} UMass Amherst |url=https://www.umass.edu/economics/weber |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=www.umass.edu}}

In December 2021, an op-ed she published in The Guardian which argued that strategic price controls could help control inflation in bottleneck situations was heavily criticized by economists. Writing in The New Yorker, journalist Zachary Carter said this made her into "the most hated woman in economics". Paul Krugman strongly criticized the op-ed but apologized for his tone during the peak of the fracas.{{cite web |author=Krugman, Paul |date=2022-01-01 |title=Entschuldigungstweet an Isabella Weber |url=https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1477247341212184577 |access-date=2022-05-05 |quote=Deleting, with Extreme Apologies, My Tweet about Isabella Weber on Price Controls. No Excuses. It’s Always Wrong to Use That Tone against Anyone Arguing in Good Faith, No Matter How Much You Disagree — Especially When There’s so Much Bad Faith out There.}} Twitter He later stated that there were "some historical examples" of price caps and they were not "wrong in principle", although he maintained that "nothing like that is going to happen in major economies in the foreseeable future".{{cite web |last1=Krugman |first1=Paul |title=The Football Game Theory of Inflation (Published 2023) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/opinion/inflation-economy.html |website=New York Times |access-date=18 April 2025 |language=en |date=3 January 2023}} The British magazine Prospect called Weber "prescient", praising her "willingness to challenge economic orthodoxies with robust, historically informed analysis".{{Cite magazine |title=The World’s Top Thinkers 2024: ideas for a world on the brink |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/63099/25-thinkers-for-a-world-on-the-brink |magazine=Prospect |date=6 December 2023 |access-date=12 January 2025}}

In 2022–23, Weber was a fellow in the Future of Capitalism program at the Berggruen Institute.{{cite news |last1=Alloway |first1=Tracy |last2=Weisenthal |first2=Joe |title=Transcript: Isabella Weber On Germany's Plan to Cap the Price of Gas |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/transcript-isabella-weber-on-germany-s-plan-to-cap-the-price-of-gas |access-date=18 September 2023 |publisher=Bloomberg News |date=10 November 2022 |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Isabella Weber: The Economics and Politics of Seller’s Inflation |url=https://australiainstitute.org.au/event/the-economics-and-politics-of-sellers-inflation-with-isabella-weber/ |website=The Australia Institute |date=7 September 2023 |access-date=18 September 2023 |language=en}}

In 2022, Weber was a member of the German government's gas price commission, an expert advisory group of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.{{cite web|access-date=2022-10-26|author=Henning Bulka, Georg Winters|date=2022-10-11|language=de|title=Energiekrise: Das sind die Mitglieder der Gaskommission|url=https://rp-online.de/politik/deutschland/gaskommission-das-sind-die-mitglieder-fotos-und-infos_bid-77857831|website=Rheinische Post}}

Awards and honors

In 2019, Weber was also awarded the Warren Samuels Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in History of Economic Thought and Methodology from the Association for Social Economics (ASE)
In 2019, Weber was awarded the Joan Robinson Prize from the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy for her book “How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate”{{Cite web |title=Isabella Weber |url=https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/globalpoliticalthought/people/isabella-weber |publisher=Harvard University |access-date=18 September 2023 |language=en}}
In 2022, Weber was named one of Bloomberg's "50 people who defined global business in 2022"{{Cite news |date=December 14, 2022 |title=Bloomberg 50: The People and Ideas That Defined Global Business in 2022 |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-bloomberg-50/ |access-date=2024-08-29 |work=Bloomberg.com |language=en |quote=Weber was among the first economists to call for government price controls on energy and other commodities as a more effective way than raising interest rates to fight inflation. Many in her profession argued that these controls can lead to shortages, but the German government embraced some of her ideas, including a plan to cap natural gas prices after Russia cut supplies.}}
In 2023, Weber was recognized on Time Magazine's Time 100 Next list which recognizes rising leaders across multiple fields{{Cite news |last=Warren |first=Elizabeth |date=13 September 2023 |title=Isabella Weber |url=https://time.com/collection/time100-next-2023/6308509/isabella-weber/ |access-date=17 September 2023 |work=Time100 Next |publisher=Time |language=en}}