Prof. Dr. Marcus Sidki, Professor of Economics and Statistics at the Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society, has been appointed as a Fellow at the Liberal Institute of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Berlin for a period of 12 months from September 1, 2020. 

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom offers political education in Germany and around the world based on the idea of liberalism. The Liberal Institute is the Foundation's think tank. It takes a stand on contemporary issues, formulates positions on content that further develop the political model of liberalism and presents them for public discussion.

As part of the fellowship, Prof. Dr. Sidki will be actively involved in the Liberal Institute's networking activities  with players from politics, associations and business in the Berlin political arena and will also hold events as part of the foundation's political education activities. The aim is to compile a study on the topic of public companies. These are companies that are majority-owned by the public sector but are not directly assigned to it. In Germany, there are around 18,000 such companies with approximately 2.1 million employees. They are active in various areas, for example in energy and heat supply, as housing associations or hospitals, or in waste disposal. They mostly provide services of general interest and are generally in competition with companies from the private sector.

The study that Prof. Sidki is working on as part of the fellowship is intended to provide an in-depth analysis of the position of public companies in a social market economy and where there are possible excesses of state intervention and distortions of competition. Based on national and international scientific findings on the discussion of the pros and cons of such public sector activities and taking into account regulatory aspects, the study is intended to provide policy-shaping suggestions in line with the foundation's mandate.