Paul J.J. Welfens (born 29 January 1957, Düren, West Germany) is a German economist. He studied economics in Wuppertal, and Duisburg in Germany, and in Paris, France. He obtained his PhD in 1985 and his full professorship in 1989 after which he became professor at the Wilhelms University of Münster and the University of Potsdam. Since 2004 Welfens is the chair professor for economics with a focus on macroeconomic theory and policy at the Bergisch University of Wuppertal, and is the Jean-Monnet-Professor for European Economic Integration. In 2007 he took a visiting professorship at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Paris Institute of Political Studies). In the same year he was the first German to be awarded the silver medal of the International N. D. Kondratiev Foundation. Welfens is founder and president of the European Institute for International Economic Relations (EIIW) at the University of Wuppertal, a non-partisan, non-profit research institute looking at issues such as globalization and multinational companies, banking developments and capital markets, ICT and digitalization, trade, economic integration amongst others. He has published books and journal papers on many pressing contemporary issues concerning economic integration and the world economy, including on Brexit, structural populism in the US under President Trump and the impact on US-EU-China/Asia relations, and most recently on the macroeconomic and health system effects of the coronavirus pandemic.