Helmut Hofer is working as Senior Researcher at the research group Business Cycles, Growth and Public Finances. He joined the Institute in 1993 and leads the IHS economic forecast group. He received his PhD (Doktorat) in Economics from Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU) in 1996 and has published in international journals.

His main research areas are macroeconomic forecasting and labour economics. He regularly forecasts and analyzes the business cycle development in Austria. He is also interested in labour market dynamics, wage development and the fiscal stance of the Austrian economy. In his research he used macroeconomic modelling techniques, microeconometric methods and microsimulation.