Past events

Venice Summer Institute 2019

Taxation in the Digital Economy: Theory and Evidence

03.06.2019 | 9:00 - 14:00, San Servolo, Venice, Italy

Recent technological changes challenge fiscal systems. For instance, the internet allows consumers to shift purchases from physical firms to online retailers, which possibly results in the creation of digital products that have no “physical” component. At the same time, internet platforms use different business models compared to standard ones. Digital platforms like Netflix and Google connect different groups of customers and thereby use pricing strategies for their products that reflect how desirable one group is for the other groups. The multi-sidedness of the platform and the global outreach of the platforms might lead to unconventional incidence and efficiency effects of taxes. These technological changes have important policy implications. For example, the issue of how value creation by digital platforms might be allocated to the various jurisdictions for corporate taxation purposes is currently the subject of hotly debated reforms proposed by the European Commission. Taxation of online sales is the subject of U.S. federal legislation such as the Marketplace Fairness Act and recent Supreme Court action. This workshop combined theoretical research and empirical evidence of taxation in the digital economy. It facilitated interactions between researchers focused on industrial organization, i.e., responses of prices/firms and public finance economists interested in the effect of the digital economy on fiscal systems.

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CEPS-EconPol Lunch Debate

Migration and the Welfare State

20.05.2019 | 13:15 - 14:30, CEPS, Brussels, Belgium

International migration is at the top of the European political agenda. European labor markets need immigrants. Population aging has already created labor shortages, but immigration also raises concerns about distributional conflicts.

These concerns, sometimes real and sometimes imagined, have played an important role in the rise of populist parties across Europe, and in the Brexit referendum. This lunchtime seminar, the first in a series, presented an overall assessment on the welfare effects of immigration when both the effects on labor market and public finances are accounted for.

It analyzed an often-overlooked aspect of international migration: emigration from European welfare states and how it can be expected to affect their fiscal and political sustainability.

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Joint ZEW-EconPol Lunch Debate

Reforming the Eurozone: How to Handle Sovereign Debt?

28.03.2019 | 12:00 - 14:00 , Representation of the State of Baden-Württemberg to the European Union, Rue Belliard 60 - 62, 1000 Brussels

The challenges facing the Eurozone are multifaceted, with Greece still having a long road to recovery and Italy facing a dangerous mix of a large government deficit and an already high debt level. This Lunch Debate was dedicated to discussing possible courses of action for the EU, if levels of sovereign debt become unsustainable. A special focus was placed on how an insolvency procedure for sovereigns may be designed as well as the risks and opportunities this presents.

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Parliamentary Lunch

Report on the European Economy

26 February 2019, Representation of the Free State of Bavaria to the European Union

The 2019 report, ‘A Fragmenting Europe in a Changing World’, touched upon the increasing challenges that the EU was facing – both within and outside the Union. After thoroughly assessing the current macroeconomic outlook for Europe, the event focused on discussing the rise of China as a leading power in science and technology. The report showed that Chinese acquisitions of European high technology companies and investments in sensitive public infrastructure attracted public attention and these developments challenged the European Union to respond appropriately, while offering ample opportunities for progress both at the member country and at the EU level.  

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CEPS Ideas Lab 2019 - EconPol Lab

Convergence and stabilisation in the Eurozone

22.02.2019 | 9:15 - 10:30 , The Egg, Rue Bara 175, 1070 Brussels

Since the French-German Meseberg declaration from June 2018, the debate about euro-area reforms has gathered new momentum. The EconPol Europe Lab Session will discuss chances and risks of recent policy initiatives such as an unemployment re-insurance scheme or tools incentivising structural reforms in the member states. Can these instruments deliver what their proponents promise? How could a compromise on EMU reform look like that finds support in all member states? 

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