Professor Betz focuses on international political economy and international institutions.
Across political systems and policy areas, political contests play out in the context of international markets and international institutions. Professor Betz asks questions about the political influence of firms, the policy autonomy of governments, and the role of institutions in explaining government and firm behavior in these environments. His research addresses the institutional sources of trade policy and trade openness; the fragmentation of firms across countries and across owners; and how governments manage sovereign debt. Professor Betz also works on challenges in the use of observational data, such as interdependence among observations.
Professor Betz studied at Freie Universität Berlin (BA), the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (MSc), and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (PhD). Prior to joining TUM, he was Assistant, then Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. In 2020, Professor Betz was appointed Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at Technical University of Munich until he joined WashU in 2023.