W. Benedikt Schmal studied economics at the Free University of Berlin and at University College Dublin. Prior to this, he studied business administration at the Welfenakademie Braunschweig and trained as a bank clerk (IHK). He completed his doctorate in the structured DFG Research Training Group 1974 “Competition Economics” at the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Justus Haucap. His dissertation is currently under review. As part of his doctorate, he completed research stays at the Department for Management, Strategy, and Innovation at the KU Leuven in Belgium and at the Department of Economics at the University of Reading in the UK. Two Oskar Morgenstern Fellowships at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University (VA, USA) have regularly taken him to research events in the United States.