Hagen Kruse is currently a PhD researcher at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on the causes of global poverty. Particularly, he is interested in contributing to the academic debate on recent patterns of structural change and industrialization in developing countries.
Hagen has been part of the GGDC and UNU-WIDER team constructing the Economic Transformation Database. These data provide researchers with evidence on sectoral employment and productivity for a large number of developing countries. In current research projects, he examines a new conceptualization of structural change based on the task-content of different occupations.
Before starting his PhD, he successfully completed a Research Master in Economics and Business as well as a Master in Economic Development and Growth at the University of Groningen. During his Bachelor studies at the University of Cologne, he contributed to research projects at the Chair for International Political Economy.
His personal curiosity for economic research on developing countries originates from pre-academic work on development projects in Southern Kenya, which were supervised by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.