Jürgen Stark

Who is Jürgen Stark?

Jürgen Stark is a German economist who has been a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank from June 2006, but announced in September 2011 he would resign later that year. Within the Executive Board he is responsible for Economics and for Monetary Analysis and is often referred to as the "chief economist" of the ECB, although this is not his official title.

Stark grew up in Rhineland-Palatinate. His father owned a vineyard in Gau-Odernheim in the Rheinhessen wine region. Stark, the second son, considered continuing in the family business. He studied economics at the University of Hohenheim and Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, both near Stuttgart, from 1968 to 1973. During that time, he told an interviewer he participated in protests including against the Vietnam War: “We all, more or less at one point or time or another, had revolutionary ideas about what was just. But this was an episode that came to an end with the end of my studies. Then I became more serious.”

He received a doctorate in 1975. From 1978 to 1998 he held economic policy positions in the German Federal Government.