Axel Dreher (born September 17, 1972) is a German economist.^[1]

He earned a master's degree from the University of Mannheim in 1999, and a Ph.D. in 2003. He is among the 500 top economists of the world according to the IDEAS/RePEc. ^[2] According to research.com he is Germany's best Political Scientist and ranks second in Economics and Finance there.^{[3] [4]}

As professor of economics at the University of Göttingen and assistant professor at the universities of Mannheim, Exeter, Konstanz and ETH Zurich he has worked in fields including:

• the public-choice-analysis of international organizations, especially International Monetary Fund and World Bank
• economic development, especially globalization
• public economics, especially corruption and shadow economy
• public finance

Dreher is professor of international and development politics at the Ruprecht-Karl University of Heidelberg.^[1] He is responsible for the KOF Index of Globalization at ETH in Zürich and is editor-in-chief of the Review of International Organizations.