Zentralinstitut John-F.-Kennedy-Institut - Department of SociologyResearch assistant (postdoc) (m/f/d) with 75%part-time job limited to 3 years salary grade (Entgeltgruppe) 13 TV-L FU reference code: PubSaveBank_Postdoc_2026_E Bewerbungsende: 27.04.2026

The sociology department at the John F. Kennedy Institute teaches and studies the political economy of the United States in comparative and historical perspective combining data-driven computational approaches with informed institutional analyses of capitalism, insurance finance, housing and welfare states while drawing on theories from Comparative Political Economy, historical and economic sociology.
The Franco-German research project "Savings Banks and Public Credit Institutions: A Historical and Comparative Perspective", co-financed by the German Research Fund and the Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR), studies the historical evolution, institutional diversity, and macroeconomic effects of savings banks and public credit institutions (development banks) from the 19th century to today. It combines economic history, macro-finance, and comparative political economy to construct new international datasets and produce cutting-edge quantitative research on financial systems, crises, and long-term development.
The postdoctoral researcher will play a leading scientific role in the project and is expected to contribute to high-impact international publications in top journals in sociology, economic history, political economy, or related disciplines. The position involves close collaboration with the Berlin and Paris teams and supervision of research assistants

Job description:
• Lead the construction and harmonization of an international historical and regional dataset on savings banks and public credit institutions (assets, liabilities, governance)
• Collect, digitize, and document historical financial statistics from printed and archival sources
• Conduct econometric and quantitative analyses on financial crises, business cycles, and macroeconomic outcomes
• Co-author research papers targeting top academic journals
• Coordinate and supervise research assistants
• Present findings at conferences and contribute to dissemination activities

Requirements:
• PhD in sociology, economic history, economicsfinance, political economy, political science, or a closely related field

Desirable:
- Excellent written and spoken English, German and/or French are a plus
- Additional assets would be experience with OCR/digitization workflows and multilingual skills

• prior research on banking, credit, finance or related topics
• strong quantitative and econometric skills (panel data, time series, causal inference)
• Experience with large-scale data construction and empirical research
• Programming skills (R, Stata, or Python)

Applications should be sent by e-mail, together with significant documents, indicating the reference code, in PDF format (preferably as one document) to Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kohl: sociology@jfki.fu-berlin.de or postal to

Freie Universität Berlin

Zentralinstitut John-F.-Kennedy-Institut

Department of Sociology

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kohl

Lansstr. 7-9

14195 Berlin (Dahlem)

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