EconPol Forum

EconPol Forum (formerly CESifo Forum) is a bi-monthly English-language journal to bring economic analysis on topics of worldwide interest along with policy advice to a broad range of policymakers and the public.

In September 2022 the CESifo Forum was restructured into four sections under the new EconPol brand. The first, Policy Debate of the Hour, recognizes the constantly evolving nature of policy challenges, focusing on the most pressing issues of the times. Leading researchers are invited to share their insights and policy conclusions. The Economic Policy and its Impact section assesses economic policies and develops robust evidence for their optimal design and implementation. In the Institutions Across the World section, contributors focus on the key role that institutional design plays in shaping socio-economic outcomes, often by comparing institutions across economic and political systems. Finally, Big Data-Based Economic Insights presents articles that glean economic policy advice from the exploitation of large, complex datasets.

EU Policy Priorities: How to Ensure Europeʼs Competitiveness and Future Prosperity?

David Pinkus, Jean Pisani-Ferry, Simone Tagliapietra, Reinhilde Veugelers, Georg Zachmann and Jeromin Zettelmeyer, Frédéric Gonand, Pedro Linares, Andreas Löschel, David Newbery, Karen Pittel, Julio Saavedra and Georg Zachmann, Giuseppe Bertola, Georg Duernecker, Fredrik Erixon, Oscar Guinea and Oscar du Roy, Maria Savona, Iain Begg and Daniel Cicak, Roel Beetsma and Marco Buti

Europe ‒ once a leader in industrial development and innovation ‒ has lost its competitiveness. Which place will it take in a new world order? Climate protection and the digital transformation will also influence the next era of prosperity. The EU and its member states now want to build a robust, secure, resilient, and sustainable economy. Meanwhile, the US, China, and some emerging economies have overtaken the EU in many international rankings.

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Rise of Populism: Causes, Consequences and Policy Implications?

Sergei Guriev, Florian Dorn, David Gstrein and Florian Neumeier, K. Peren Arin, Efstathios Polyzos and Marcel Thum, Eugenio Levi and Steven Stillman, Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick and Christoph Trebesch, Luisa Dörr, Niklas Potrafke, Felix Rösel and Tuuli Tähtinen, Vincenzo Galasso, Gylfi Zoega, Massimo Morelli

Populism is on the rise. It goes hand in hand with far-left or far-right party slogans and/or strong, personalized political leadership and polarized rhetoric: The presidency of Donald Trump in the US and the campaigns for the Brexit referendum are two prominent examples in recent years. Several EU member states, namely France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Greece, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany, have experienced how quickly populists win voters in national elections. With the presidential election in the US and European elections in 2024, many people fear a further rise in political polarization and populism in the Western world.

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Inequality Trends in the Context of Changes in Labor Market Outcomes, Composition and Redistribution in Germany

INSTITUTIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

Maximilian Blömer, Elena Herold, Max Lay, Andreas Peichl, Ann-Christin Rathje, Paul Schüle and Anne Steuernagel

With ongoing demographic and economic changes, documenting the distribution of economic resources within a society is a recurring task for applied economic research that can never be considered complete. In Germany, several studies have investigated trends in earnings and income inequality in the past few years. However, a recent and comprehensive account of inequality in Germany that also considers dimensions other than earnings and income inequality is currently not available. This article documents the development of inequalities in Germany over the years from 1983 to 2020.

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Pandemics, Payments and Fiscal Policy: Lessons from Four Years after the Outbreak of Covid-19

BIG-DATA-BASED ECONOMIC INSIGHTS

Gerome Wolf

The outbreak of an unprecedented global health crisis about four years ago put the very foundations of our communities, economies and politics to the test. Policymakers had to learn and react fast to limit human and economic costs at the same time. This article highlights the importance of existing markets, technological features such as payments systems and economic decisions at the transactional level in combating the spread of a contagious disease while stabilizing aggregate economic activity.

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A World Unprepared: Missing Skills for Development

ECONOMIC POLICY AND ITS IMPACT

Sarah Gust, Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann

How far away is the world from ensuring that every child obtains at least basic skills? And what would it mean for world development to reach the goal of global universal basic skills? This article addresses these two intertwined questions in a new study. The authors draw on the individual-level test data from available international and regional student assessments to develop world estimates of the share of children not achieving basic skills in each country and then show the economic costs of these deficits.

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