Areas of Expertise

Foreign economic policy and sanctions
Economies of Eastern Europe, especially Russia
European energy and security policy
Financial markets and global financial architecture
Multilateral institutions
Transatlantic relations

Short Bio

Benjamin Hilgenstock has been an associate fellow at DGAP since July 2023. He is currently a senior economist at the KSE Institute of the Kyiv School of Economics where he focuses on the international regime of sanctions against Russia, particularly in the areas of energy, finance, and export controls. He is also a member of the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions.

From 2018 to 2022, Hilgenstock worked for the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington, DC on the macroeconomic analysis of developing and emerging market economies, including those in Central and Eastern Europe. He worked at the International Monetary Fund from 2016 to 2018 and contributed to the World Economic Outlook.

Hilgenstock earned a master’s degree in political science, economics, and public law from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in 2008 and spent time abroad at American University in Washington, DC and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.