Professor Charles Beat Blankart has been Professor of Economics at the Humboldt University in Berlin since 1992, where he holds the Professorship for Public Finances and primarily supervises the research fields of public finance, public choice and federalism. Professor Blankart was born in Switzerland in 1942. He studied Economics and graduated from the University of Basel before beginning his career in Germany. He completed his post-doctoral lecture qualification at the University of Constance (1976) before becoming a professor at the Free University of Berlin, then at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich (1978–1985) and the Technical University in Berlin (1985–1992). He has also held many guest professorships and has undertaken research trips to Europe and America. Professor Blankart has repeatedly dealt with Swiss themes and rules in academic and economic discussion, and has gained some attention in connection with federalism and direct democracy in Germany. This has been all the greater when his orientation towards liberal regimes and to system competition represents a significant contrast to some approaches in German economics and politics. Amongst other issues, this applies to the handling of federal competition within a country or on an international level in terms of tax competition between nations, or in relation to the question as to how a European constitution should be created. Professor Blankart is a member of the scientific advisory panel at the Federal Ministry of Economics, is on various committees at the Society for Social Policy, and is a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society.