I study modern American and German business history in transnational perspective with a special focus on questions of migration, knowledge transfer, and economic relations.  My current book project looks at the role of European immigrants and emigres in transatlantic transfers in marketing, commercial design, and consumer psychology since the interwar years. Transatlantic comparisons and the development of mass consumer societies in the twentieth century have been a major research emphasis of mine.  I have  published on the history of consumer credit, retailing and urban space, on forms of public consumption and on elite migration.

I currently teach at the University of Bonn in the North American Studies Program and remain affiliated with the Institute for Economic History at the University of Göttingen.