New CESifo Network Research Areas

One of the largest of its kind in the world, the CESifo Economics Research Network brings together more than 650 scholars from 24 countries, including 6 Nobel laureates ¹. The Network has been hitherto divided into five research areas, with two new ones being created now to address some of the topics that shape our times: Climate and Energy Economics, and Economics of Education .

The former, co-ordinated by Michael Hoel of the University of Oslo, has the goal of promoting co-operation on theoretical and empirical research on all economic issues related to energy markets, climate change, and climate policy. Concerns about future climate change have increased significantly since the beginning of this century, and are likely to be strong also in the coming decades. The interests of the area’s researchers span a wide range of fields, including the design of climate policies and climate agreements, the promotion of renewable energy, and the functioning of fossil fuel markets. Policy intervention in the functioning of energy markets is often motivated by climate concerns, and an important aim of research in this area is to improve our understanding of the climate implications of various policies, both for policies that have climate change as their primary concern and policies with other primary objectives (such as e.g. energy security).  

The Economics of Education area, co-ordinated by Eric A. Hanushek, of Stanford University and former member of the CESifo Group Scientific Advisory Council, in addition to intensifying research in the field, aims to correct the lack of intersection between the enormous research activity on the economics of education going on in both Europe and the United States by increasing interaction among researchers on both sides of the Atlantic. Both sides stand to gain. While the US has something to show for its world-class universities, countries such as Finland have something to teach the US regarding elementary and high-school education.

The other areas in the Network are Employment and Social Protection, coordinated by Prof. Kai Konrad, Berlin, Applied Microeconomics, coordinated by Prof. Christian Gollier, Toulouse, Macro, Money and International Finance, coordinated by Prof. Paul De Grauwe, Leuven, Public Sector Economics, coordinated by Prof. Frederick van der Ploeg, Oxford, and Global Economy, coordinated by Prof. John Whalley, Western Ontario.

• More on the CESifo Research Network
• CESifo Working Papers published in the past three months