Dr. Melinda Fremerey

Personal Research Assistant to the Director

Tel: +49 221 4981-606 Mail: Fremerey@iwkoeln.de Melinda Fremerey

Since 2022 at the IW
Personal scientific advisor to the director at the Institute of German Economics
Studied economics (B.Sc. and M.Sc.) at the University of Cologne with a semester abroad at the Warsaw School of Economics in Warsaw, Poland.
Doctorate at the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf with the title: "Four Essays in Applied Microeconomics - Empirical Analyzes of Public Policies & Voting Behavior"
Main research areas: Political economy, regional and competition economics

IW Publications

Fremerey, Melinda / Gerards Iglesias, Simon, 2025, 35 Jahre grenzenlos: Die Entwicklung der Regionen an der ehemaligen innerdeutschen Grenze, IW-Report, Nr. 46, Köln
Zur Studie

Hüther, Michael / Gerards Iglesias, Simon / Fremerey, Melinda / Parthie, Sandra, 2023, Europa muss den nächsten Schritt wagen: Delors-Plan 2.0. Eine neue Version für Europa, IW-Policy Paper, Nr. 4, Köln / Berlin / Brüssel
Zur Studie

Fremerey, Melinda / Gerards Iglesias, Simon, 2022, Abhängigkeit – Was bedeutet sie und wo besteht sie?, IW-Report, Nr. 56, Berlin / Köln
Zur Studie

Fremerey, Melinda, 2022, Die Ukraine als EU-Beitrittskandidat? Ein Vergleich wirtschaftlicher Indikatoren der Ukraine mit den letzten drei EU-Beitrittsländern, IW-Report, Nr. 32, Berlin
Zur Studie

External Publications

Fremerey, Melinda / Lichter, Andreas / Löffler, Max, 2022, Fiscal and Economic Effects of Local Austerity, in: CESifo Working Paper No. 9800, CESifo, Munich
Zur Studie

The Effects of Private Damage Claims on Cartel Activity: Experimental Evidence (mit O. Bodnar, H. Normann und J. Schad), DICE Discussion Paper, No. 315, Jun 2021 (First Version June 2019 under the title “The Effects of Private Damage Claims on Cartel Stability: Experimental Evidence”), Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, im Erscheinen. (DP Umschlag (hhu.de)

More from Dr. Melinda Fremerey

External Publication 21. April 2026 Melinda Fremerey et al.

Local Aspects of Digital Competition

We study competition in the ready-to-eat meal delivery market in Germany, a sector characterized by digital platforms, while the competition is tightly local.

IW-Report No. 46 2. October 2025 Melinda Fremerey / Simon Gerards Iglesias

35 years without borders: The development of the regions along the former inner German border

35 years after German reunification, there is still intense debate in politics and public discourse about the differences between East and West and the extent to which the country has actually grown together.

IW-Policy Paper No. 4 27. March 2023 Michael Hüther et al.

Europe must take the next step: Plan Delors 2.0

In the coming years, the world order of exchange and multilateralism, which has so far been shaped by the West, will lose power, and global institutions will find it increasingly difficult to fulfil their mission of balancing interests and promoting international cooperation and development.

IW-Report No. 56 3. November 2022 Melinda Fremerey / Simon Gerards Iglesias

Dependence - What does it mean and where does it exist?

The concept of dependency has been at the center of most recent policy debates. The German economy's dependence on exports, Europe's military dependence on the USA and, not least, the Germans' dependence on Russian gas - dependencies seem omnipresent and at the same time hardly solvable.

External Publication

Fiscal and Economic Effects of Local Austerity

External Publication 20. June 2022 Melinda Fremerey / Andreas Lichter / Max Löffler in CESifo Working Papers

Fiscal and Economic Effects of Local Austerity

We study the consequences of a large-scale austerity program targeting financially-constrained municipalities in Germany. For identification, we exploit the quasi-random assignment of treatment among equally-distressed municipalities using a difference-in-differences design.

IW-Report No. 32 7. June 2022 Melinda Fremerey

Ukraine as a candidate for EU membership?

The European Commission is currently evaluating Ukraine's application for an EU-membership. A fast-track procedure for Ukraine's admission to the EU is discussed recently.