Michael Pflüger is Professor of Economics at the University of Würzburg. Previously he was Professor of Economics at the University of Passau, the Darmstadt University of Technology and a Visiting Fellow at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). He studied economics at the University of Freiburg in Germany, Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and the University of Cambridge (Kings College), England. He received his doctorate and the Friedrich-August von Hayek Prize 1994 from the University of Freiburg where he also finished his habilitation in 2000 with research on labor market and environmental concerns posed by economic integration.

Pflüger's current research interests center around the new trade theory with heterogeneous and homogeneous firms, the new economic geography and the theory of the multinational firm. A special focus of his work is on issues pertaining to locational competition (in subsidies, taxes, environmental policies) and another special focus is on the labor market effects of trade and FDI.

His works are published in journals such as International Economic Review, Journal of Public Economics, European Economic Review, Scandinavian Journal of Economics,
Economica, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford Economic Papers, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Public Economic Theory and Review of International Economics.

He is a member of the scientific board of IAB-Nuremberg and currently the head of the regional and urban economics section of the Verein für Socialpolitik.

Michael Pflüger joined IZA as a Research Fellow in April 2001.