News

On 20 and 21 May 2021, around 140 energy and environmental economists from Germany and abroad participated online in the ninth Mannheim Conference on Energy and the Environment. International researchers and experts discussed various topics of the energy industry for two days. This year, the conference organised by ZEW Mannheim focused on energy efficiency, electricity markets, mobility and carbon pricing.

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The research award ‘Future of the Working World’ 2020 has been officially handed over to the laureates. In the presence of ZEW Managing Director Thomas Kohl and former ZEW President Professor Wolfgang Franz, who gave the laudatory speech, the two winners received the award from Carsten Müller, spokesman of the board of Volksbank Kurpfalz. Every year, the Volksbank Weinheim Stiftung and ZEW Mannheim honour outstanding dissertations and master’s theses in the field of economics.

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Economic experts expect the price increases in the euro area to be temporary. They have scarcely changed their forecasts for economic growth in the euro area. For the German economy, they expect only below-average growth in comparison. This is the result of the business cycle tableaus by ZEW Mannheim and the German daily newspaper, Börsen-Zeitung.

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Public debt levels have skyrocketed as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. In order to bridge the massive financing gaps in public budgets, policymakers are shifting their focus of attention on corporate taxation. However, corporate tax rates differ greatly in international comparison.

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Climate change is one of the central challenges of our time. In order to become carbon-neutral by 2050, Germany and Europe must significantly reduce CO₂ emissions in the coming years. In the tenth episode of the #ZEWPodcast ‘Wirtschaft · Forschung · Debatten’/‘Economy · Research · Debates’, Professor Sebastian Rausch, head of the Research Department “Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management” at ZEW Mannheim, explains how greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced in our market-based system and outlines several scenarios for future climate policy.

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US President Biden’s push to waive patent rights for coronavirus vaccines has provoked a heated debate about ways to improve the vaccine supply, especially in developing countries. But would waiving patent rights actually be an appropriate instrument? Proponents argue that exclusive patent rights are partially responsible for the catastrophic lack of coronavirus vaccine in many countries. By contrast, opponents of a patent protection waiver insist that the vaccine shortage has nothing to do with patents, but has instead resulted from inadequate production capacity.

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Why are female talents not always allocated in the best possible way on the international labour market? How should consumer goods be optimally taxed in the face of externalities? How does tax avoidance occur? These and other questions were addressed at the annual ZEW Public Finance Conference, jointly organised by ZEW Mannheim and the Collaborative Research Center SFB 884 “Political Economy of Reforms” of the University of Mannheim on 6 and 7 May 2021. For the second time, around 200 researchers from all over the world came together digitally, resulting in a very international programme. This year’s main topic was “Behavioural Public Economics”.

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Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down. The virus presented us with unprecedented challenges in all areas of our lives and required rapid and massive government intervention. ZEW Mannheim provided scientific impetus to address these challenges, for example, by pointing out the effects of school closures, identifying ways to speed up the production of vaccines and investigating the impact of the ‘Querdenken’ protests on infection rates. The newly published German version of the ZEW Annual Report 2020 provides an interesting overview of this – an English version will be available soon.

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The ZEW Sponsors’ Association of Science and Practice has launched its own website (in German only), where users can quickly and easily find out about the Association’s goals and activities. Its members actively support the work of ZEW and benefit from exclusive offers. Anyone interested in becoming a member can find all the information they need on the website.

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The German weekly business magazine WirtschaftsWoche ranks two researchers from ZEW Mannheim in their list of outstanding economists under the age of 40. According to WirtschaftsWoche, Professor Vitali Gretschko and Dr. Simon Reif are among those who are actively shaping the future by working on groundbreaking topics and providing valuable impulses for Germany.

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