Daniel Graeber is an economist at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and a researcher at the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). He works in empirical microeconomics with a focus on health economics, behavioral economics, and the economics of preferences.

His research analyzes how economic preferences, subjective well-being, and health outcomes are shaped by both environmental exposures and biological factors. A central strand of his work studies behavioral responses to large-scale shocks—such as terrorist incidents and public health crises—using geocoded data combined with longitudinal survey evidence. Another line of research examines the role of cognitive skills and genetic endowments in shaping economic preferences and decision-making.

Graeber’s published work contributes to leading fields in economics, including health economics, behavioral economics, and inequality research. His research has appeared in peer-reviewed international journals and has accumulated several hundred citations according to Google Scholar, reflecting its growing impact in the literature.

In addition, he works on inequality of opportunity with a particular emphasis on wealth and health disparities over the life cycle. Methodologically, his research combines causal inference approaches with machine learning techniques and decomposition methods applied to large-scale panel data.

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