Christoph M. Schmidt is a German economist. He is the president of the RWI Essen and member of the German Council of Economic Experts.

Schmidt received his Diploma 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. Schmidt received his Habilitation in 1995 from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Since 2002 he became president of the RWI Essen and in 2009 he replaced Bert Rürup on the German Council of Economic Experts.