Klaus F. Zimmermann is the President of the Global Labor Organization (GLO); Co-Director of POP at UNU-MERIT; Full Professor of Economics at Bonn University (em.); Honorary Professor, Maastricht University, Free University of Berlin and Renmin University of China; Member, German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Regional Science Academy, and Academia Europaea (Chair of Economics, Business and Management Sciences section). Among others, he has worked at Macquarie University, the Universities of Melbourne, Princeton, Harvard, Munich, Kyoto, Mannheim, Dartmouth College, and the University of Pennsylvania. He was Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and Fellow of the European Economic Association (EEA), Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Population Economics, in the Editorial Board of International Journal of Manpower, Founding Director at Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and Past President of German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). He won the Distinguished John G. Diefenbaker Award (the Canada Council for the Arts), Outstanding Contribution Award (the European Investment Bank), Rockefeller Foundation Policy Fellow, Eminent Research Scholar Award (Australia), and EBES Fellow Award. He has published in many top journals including Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Public Choice, Review of Economics and Statistics, and Journal of Population Economics. His research fields are population, labor, development, and migration.

Dorothea Schäfer is the Research Director of Financial Markets at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and Adjunct Professor of Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping University. She has also worked as an evaluator for the European Commission, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and Chairwoman of Evaluation Committee for LOEWE (Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz des Bundeslandes Hessen). She managed various research projects supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the EU Commission, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and the Stiftung Geld und Währung. Her researches were published in various journals such as Journal of Financial Stability; German Economic Review; International Journal of Money and Finance; and Small Business Economics. She is regularly invited as an expert in parliamentary committees, including the Finance Committee of the Bundestag and gives lectures on financial market issues in Germany and abroad. She is also a member of the Editorial Board and Editor-in-Chief of the policy-oriented journal "Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung” and Editor-in-Chief of Eurasian Economic Review. Her research topics include financial crisis, financial market regulation, financing constraints, gender, and financial markets, financial transaction tax.

Marco Vivarelli is a full professor at the Catholic University of Milano, where he is also Director of the Institute of Economic Policy. He is Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT, Maastricht; Research Fellow at IZA; Fellow of the Global Labor Organization (GLO). He is member of the Scientific Executive Board of the Eurasia Business and Economics Society (EBES); member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO, Vienna) and has been scientific consultant for the International Labour Office (ILO), World Bank (WB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the European Commission. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Eurasian Business Review, Editor of Small Business Economics, Associate Editor of Industrial and Corporate Change, Associate Editor of Economics EJournal, member of the Editorial Board of Sustainability and he has served as a referee for more than 70 international journals. He is author/editor of various books and his papers have been published in journals such as Cambridge Journal of Economics, Canadian Journal of Economics, Economics Letters, Industrial and Corporate Change, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Economics, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Labour Economics, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Regional Studies, Research Policy, Small Business Economics, Southern Economic Journal, World Bank Research Observer, and World Development. His current research interests include the relationship between innovation, employment, and skills; the labor market and income distribution impacts of globalization; the entry and post-entry performance of newborn firms.