Hans-Werner Sinn is former President of the Ifo Institute, Director of the Center for Economic Studies (CES) and Executive Director of CESifo GmbH. He was appointed Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1984 and professor emeritus in April 2016. Sinn is known to the general public for his books on economic policy, which include the English versions: Jumpstart, Can Germany Be Saved?, The Green Paradox, Casino Capitalism, and The Euro Trap. His main research interests are taxation, the environment, growth and exhaustible resources, risk theory, climate and energy, banking, demography and social security, macroeconomics and systemic competition.

Sinn has received a wide range of other awards and prizes, including the Europe Prize by the University of Maastricht (2008), the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art (2008), the Gustav Stolper Prize of the Verein für Socialpolitik (2008), the State Medal for Special Services to the Bavarian Economy (2012), and the Ludwig Erhard Prize of the Ludwig Erhard Foundation. He is also holder of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and of the 1st Class Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Hans-Werner Sinn has one of the highest research outputs among German-speaking economists. According to a study of citations by other scientists conducted by Ursprung and Zimmer in 2007, Sinn ranked second (all publications with proportionate weighting according to the number of authors) to Nobel laureate Reinhard Selten. For years, Sinn has consistently topped the ranking of research economists at German institutions featured in the RePEc research database that charts the number of citations by other academics. In the Handelsblatt Ranking of Economists for 2013, which is only based on output in journals and does not include citations and books, Sinn ranked 8th. In 2015 Sinn was awarded the “German teaching professor of the year” distinction by the Deutsche Hochschulverband (German Association of University Professors and Lecturers). He is the first economist to be awarded such distinction. 

For the British newspaper The Independent, Sinn’s research into the European payment system made him one of the ten most important people who changed the world in 2011. He ranked top of the WirtschaftsWoche’s list of “Most Important Economists” and was the only German to feature in Bloomberg’s ranking of the top 50 personalities in business worldwide in 2012. According to a survey conducted by the magazine Cicero ("Die Liste der 500", December 2016), which listed the top 500 German intellectuals, Sinn ranked 4th. In a survey of German Bundestag members and federal ministry staff published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) in 2013, Sinn ranked top in Germany as a response to the question “Which economist’s advice or publications do you find most valuable to your work?” The FAZ's ranking of economists named him "Germany's most influential economist of 2014", arguing that "no other economics researcher in Germany has such a high profile in the media and politics and is also active in research." He also topped the ranking in 2015. Sinn featured in the worldwide list of the Top 100 Thought Leaders for his work on the bazaar economy.