Issue 2017/01

The question of how fair a society is and its level of income inequality are often closely related in the public debate. The recent CESifo Working Paper by Ingvild Almås, Alexander Cappelen, and Bertil Tungodden investigates the factors that determine the level of inequality accepted by a society. Read on to learn more about surprising differences and similarities between the US and Scandinavia!

Peter Navarro, head of President Donald Trump's new National Trade Council, recently argued that Germany is using an undervalued euro to export deflation. In response, Clemens Fuest argues that the only person who can influence the US trade deficit is Trump himself. Read more!

The start of the year brought good news for two of Ifo's researchers. Gabriel Felbermayr, Director of the Ifo Center for International Economics, was appointed a member of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy’s Scientific Advisory Council.
Meanwhile, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) awarded Ifo President Clemens Fuest an honorary doctorate.

Sentiment among German managers weakened in January. The Ifo Business Climate Index fell to 109.8 points this month from 111.0 points in December. Companies expressed greater satisfaction with their current business situation, but are less optimistic about their six-month business outlook. The German economy made a less confident start to the year.

The 1st doctoral workshop on the economics of digitization will take place on 12-13 May 2017 at CESifo in Munich. This workshop will bring together doctoral students doing research in the field of the Economics of Digitization and will have both a theoretical and an empirical focus. The keynote speaker will be Tommaso Valletti. The workshop is a joint initiative of CESifo Group Munich, Liege Competition and Innovation Institute, Telecom ParisTech and the Toulouse School of Economics.

 IIPF Doctoral School at CESifo

The fourth IIPF Doctoral School will take place on 23-25 May 2017 at CESifo / Ifo Institute in Munich, Germany. Uwe Sunde (University of Munich) and Matteo Cervellati (University of Bologna) will give lectures on the "Dynamics of Inequality". Learn more about the event here.