EconPol Forum

The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a huge, sudden uptake in work from home, as individuals and organizations responded to contagion fears and government restrictions on commercial and social activities. Over time, it has become evident that the big shift to work from home will endure after the pandemic ends. No other episode in modern history involves such a pronounced and widespread shift in working arrangements in such a compressed time frame.

How successful have efforts been to socially integrate Syrian migrants in Germany? What factors influence social integration? Together with researchers from Harvard and Meta, we address these questions in a new research paper working with de-identified data from Facebook.

In October 2021, 136 countries and jurisdictions agreed on the introduction of a global effective minimum tax (OECD 2021). The plan is to impose a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on the global profits of multinational corporations (MNCs). If an MNC’s effective tax burden in a country is less than 15 percent, additional taxes will be collected until the ratio of tax payments to profits reaches a level of 15 percent. This is to affect all MNCs whose global consolidated revenue is at least €750 million.

In this issue of the EconPol Forum, our authors discuss how Europe can more effectively address all these challenges and solve the associated labor market problems caused by rapid structural change. The authors also provide helpful policy recommendations for national governments and EU companies.

Economic research has always emphasized the importance of a well-educated population for the level and dynamics of per capita income and other key economic variables. Foreseeable demographic changes – especially the stagnation or even decline of the active labor force – make investments in the quality of human capital particularly necessary.