Michael Lechner works as professor of Econometrics at the University of St. Gallen since 1998. Since 2025, he is a Guest Professor at Örebro University. In 1994, he received his PhD in Economics and Econometrics at the University of Mannheim. He co-heads the Swiss Institute for Empirical Economic Research (SEW) of the University of St. Gallen. His methodological interests are in causal machine learning and optimal decision making (policy learning). Most of his applied work is in labour and sports economics. He has published in the Journal of Econometrics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, and the Journal of the European Economic Association among many others. He is a Fellow of the German Academy of Science Leopoldina (Halle) and the Center for Economic Policy Reseach (CEPR, London).