Christoph Matthias Schmidt (born 25 August 1962) is a German economist. He is the president of the RWI Essen and since 2009 chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts.Schmidt received his Diplom in economics at the University of Mannheim in 1987, and his M.A. in economics from Princeton University in 1989. He also earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1991, under supervision of David Card. Schmidt received his Habilitation in 1995 from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.