Michael D. König is associate professor at the Department of Spatial Economics at VU Amsterdam. He is also a research fellow at the Tinbergen Institute, the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the Swiss Economic Institute (KOF). Prior to joining the VU Amsterdam he was a senior research associate at the University of Zurich, a visiting scholar at Bocconi University, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Department of Economics at Stanford University.

His research focuses on the economics of innovation and technical change, and how these affect and are being affect by networked relationships between various economic actors, ranging from individuals, firms, sectors to countries. His research combines both, theoretical as well as empirical methods, and he uses these methods to evaluate real world policy instruments.