Wolfgang Maennig is a professor of economics in the department of economics at the University of Hamburg. Previously, he was a professor at the E.A.P. Paris-Oxford-Berlin-Madrid. Among other positions, he was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the universities of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and Istanbul, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and the American University in Dubai. He was also a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., and at the Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt.
His research focuses on economic policy, sports economics, and urban economics and real estate markets. His work has been published in leading international academic journals, including the Journal of Economic Geography, the Journal of Urban Economics, the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of International Money and Finance, the Journal of Sports Economics, and Real Estate Economics. He is co-editor of the International Handbook on the Economics of Mega Sporting Events and Understanding German Real Estate Markets.
Wolfgang Maennig is an Olympic rowing champion (1988), a recipient of the Olympic Order, and honorary president of the German Rowing Association. He has served as an expert advisor for many bids to host major sporting events, including the Olympic bids for Berlin 2000, Hamburg 2012, Leipzig 2012, Munich 2018, and the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin.
He serves as a business angel for start-ups, an investor, and a member of advisory and supervisory boards (e.g., Eckert & Ziegler AG—chairman 1999–2023; BVG Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe, 2004–2008).