Marcus Sidki is Professor of Economics and Statistics at the University of Applied Sciences Ludwigshafen. There, he heads the Research Center for Public and Nonprofit Enterprises and is a member of the university's executive board as the executive committee's representative for research and cooperation.
He focuses in his research on political economy and empirical finance. He studied economics at the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg with a focus on financial markets and macroeconomics as well as theoretical statistics. After graduating with a diploma in economics, he earned his doctorate at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer with a thesis on financing structures in the public sector. Before his calling, he worked in the banking sector for more than seven years.
His fellowship at the Liberal Institut aims to write a study on the situation of public enterprises in Germany. These are companies that are majority-owned by the public sector but are not directly assigned to it. In Germany, there are about 18,000 such companies with about 2.1 million employees. They are active in various fields, e.g. in energy and heat supply, like housing associations, hospitals or in waste disposal. They usually provide services of general interest and are generally in competition with companies from the private sector. The study is supposed to deliver an in-depth analysis, which position public enterprises in a social market economy take and where possible exaggerations at national interferences and competition distortions are present. Based on national and international scientific findings for the discussion of the pros and cons of such public sector activities and taking into account regulatory aspects, the study intends to provide policy-shaping suggestions in the sense of the foundation's mission.