Economics

Meet the Economist Leading Germany’s Battle Against Debt

  • Lars Feld has the ear of Finance Minister Christian Lindner
  • Controversial adviser wants debt limit to be model for France
Economist Lars Feld in his office in Freiburg, Germany, on April 29.Photographer: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg
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Lars Feld doesn’t come off as a hardliner.

He has a kind voice, a soft handshake, a gentle smile. A stud shimmers on his left ear. In his office at the Walter Eucken Institute, an economic think tank in the western German city of Freiburg, piles of manuscripts and case studies cover half of the room; bookshelves extend up to the ceiling, an unadorned desk sits by the window.