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Do all Americans pay a fair amount of tax? Not at all. On the contrary, there is a huge disparity in the taxation of average workers and the taxation of the wealthy, especially the super-rich, according to UC Berkeley Associate Professor Gabriel Zucman. On 10 March 2021, the economist presented his new book ‘The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay’ virtually at ZEW Mannheim, which he wrote together with Emmanuel Saez. Zucman is also leading the newly established European Tax Observatory that has commenced its work in 2021. ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach moderated the third edition of #ZEWBookTalk.

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What role does information play for policymaking in the area of climate protection? Can information have a political impact if this information reaches citizens and provides incentives for climate-friendly behaviour? Last week, representatives from the realms of academia, business, policymaking and society discussed how these questions can be approached at the national and European level within the framework of the Forum Climate Economics 8. The forum was organised as a virtual event, allowing an audience of around 250 viewers to follow the discussion and participate via chat.

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What will be left of our houses, savings and pensions in times of low interest rates? What distinguishes sustainable start-up companies from other firms? How can refugees be successfully integrated into the labour market – especially in light of the pandemic? How can we get young people excited about economics? These are some of the questions that will be tackled by the student teams participating in the 2021 YES! – Young Economic Summit, Germany’s biggest school competition on economic issues. Researchers of ZEW will mentor and support the students during the competition.

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How does demographic change affect financial markets and their actors? What are the policy implications of current research findings, and how can research evolve from this? To address these questions, ZEW Mannheim organised the first conference on “Ageing and Financial Markets” from 10 to 12 February 2021 as an online-only event with guests from all over the world.

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Against the backdrop of the pandemic, ZEW Mannheim’s Research Department “Social Policy and Redistribution” organised a workshop that focused on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis and how to respond to it through economic research.

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Just in time for the Chinese New Year on 12 February, the Chinese Tencent Research Institute once again published its annual list of the twelve most recommended books for 2021. This time, the list includes the book “Digitaler Wohlstand für alle” (“Digital Prosperity for All”), published by Campus-Verlag and written by ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach together with Handelsblatt journalist Hans Christian Müller. At the beginning of December 2020, the Chinese translation of the book was published by Social Sciences Academic Press in China.

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We create chemistry for a sustainable future – this is one of the commitments of BASF SE as it moves towards the energy transition. As an integral part of the chemical industry, the world’s biggest chemical enterprise in terms of turnover is also one of the most energy-intensive companies in the world. As part of the lecture series “First-Hand Information on Economic Policy” on 9 December 2021, Dr. Martin Brudermüller, CEO of BASF SE, and ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach discussed the sustainability strategy of BASF.

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The coronavirus pandemic has led to abrupt changes, forcing companies to adapt their established work processes and develop new solutions. Against this background, ZEW Mannheim and the Stifterverband jointly organised an online workshop on the impact of the current crisis on the German innovation system, which took place on 28 January 2021. This event, which was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), provided an opportunity for around 200 representatives from businesses, research and policymaking to engage in intensive exchange.

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Germany ended its EU Council presidency by launching fireworks one day earlier than expected: on 30 December, the EU and China agreed to the terms of a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), thus concluding seven years of negotiations. However, further steps that involve the US are necessary.

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When the coronavirus contact-tracing app was released onto the market, it was considered as one of the most important instruments in the fight against the pandemic. Up until now, these hopes have hardly been fulfilled. The number of app users is simply not high enough to be able to effectively curb the spread of the virus. There are also still significant data privacy concerns from the general public, and both user experience as well as success measurement are in need of improvement. In the most recent #ZEWPodcast episode, Dr. Dominik Rehse, head of the Junior Research Group “Digital Market Design”, talks about the potential and shortcomings of the coronavirus contact-tracing app. He explains why the app is nevertheless a good idea and how it could be improved with the help of a so-called ‘living laboratory’.

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