Uwe Blien studied economics and sociology at the University of Regensburg, Germany, where he received his diploma in 1980 and his doctoral degree in 1986. After his studies he worked at the Universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg and Regensburg. From 1987 to 1990 he was a senior researcher and deputy head of a research department at the Center for Survey, Research and Methodology (ZUMA) in Mannheim. Since then he is a senior researcher at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB, Nürnberg). He is now head of the Research Department of Regional Labour Markets in the position of a scientific director. In 1999 he received his post-doctoral degree (Habilitation) in economics at the University of Kaiserslautern and achieved later the status of a (apl.) Professor there. Since 2010 he has been Professor (W3) at the Otto-Friedrich-University of Bamberg. 1996 - 2002 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Labour Economists (EALE). Since 2002 he has been the representative of the Gesellschaft fuer Regionalforschung (GfR), the German speaking section in the Council of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA). From 2010 to 2014 he was the elected president of the GfR. His current research interests include analyses on the effects of unemployment on wages, the development of regions, the effects of structural changes, the econometric application of multilevel models, the development of East-Asian societies and the evolution of social norms.


He joined IZA in July 2000 as a Research Fellow.