Dr Max Jacobs

Senior Policy Advisor, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie)

I have been lucky enough to be named Marshall Memorial Fellow 2026 by the German Marshall Fund. This fellowship, which has seen far more acclaimed alumni than myself to this date, is ultimately also a continuation of my work between law and economics that the MSc Law and Finance (MLF) has prepared me for. 

I still think very fondly of my time at Oxford, where I found friends for life and had a wonderful year. Before I decided to take up the place in the MLF 2018-2019, I remember that I had an exchange with back then Academic Director Luca Enriques, on whether the MLF might the be the right fit for me considering my aspirations to work in the sphere of politics and policy.

Luca, who was very helpful and charming even in the first emails we exchanged, wrote that even though he believes no university can teach the real mechanics of politics it can teach how to address policies and the MLF would prepare me well for this. Because of his personal notes back then I chose the MLF over the French ENA.

Seven years after graduation, I worked for the Hamburg State Parliament, the German Bundestag and now at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and I can attest he was absolutely right.

The economic rationale that is taught in the MLF has helped me every step of the way, even when I was starting out at big international law firms after graduation. But it was not only First Principles of Financial Economics that left a unique impression upon me, but also Horst Eidenmueller’s course on negotiation and mediation, that led me to pursue a fellowship on behavioural economics at Harvard and still now informs my day to day work for the German government.