Team
The people behind the ifo Institute offer the very high level of expertise and experience needed to fulfill our research and service mandate.
Inequality
Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital in the twenty-first century” which addressed questions of wealth distribution put its finger on the pulse of the times. Despite growing criticism of Piketty’s work, politicians, the media and economists have nevertheless pounced on the inequality debate since the publication of Piketty’s book. Many theories on this topic are discussed in the media; but which of them are true, and which are ill-founded?
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
It collects data, analyzes it, and can provide doctors with more precise information on the best possible patient care. It ensures driving safety in the road traffic of tomorrow. It helps decide whether we get the loan or not. Artificial intelligence (AI): the technology of the future is finding its way into work and everyday life. It is supposed to make our lives easier. However, it also harbors risks in areas including control, data protection, and job losses.
Climate Policy
With the European Green Deal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has defined a new growth and climate strategy. The aim of this strategy is to cut greenhouse gas emissions while also creating jobs, but there are still many questions regarding the form it should take and how to implement it. While the EU plans to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, the targets set in Germany are somewhat less ambitious: by 2050, the German government aims to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions down to 80 to 95 percent of their 1990 levels.
The Energy Crisis
The price of electricity is rising, gas is becoming scarce, climate change is advancing: the current crises and geopolitical changes pose major challenges for energy policy. Do policymakers have to choose between securing the energy supply and protecting the climate? Should they keep nuclear power plants online longer than originally planned? Do we continue to plan for natural gas as a bridge technology? We need to speed up the expansion of renewables, increase energy efficiency, and expand infrastructures. Our focus is on bringing together insights on how to solve the acute crisis and shape the energy markets of the future.
Monetary Policy
The European Central Bank (ECB) is coming under increasing pressure. It wants to achieve its goal of long-term price stability with an inflation rate of below, but close to, 2 percent for the euro area. At the same time, it is concerned about the weak economic environment. Given how low interest rates already are, the ECB seems to have exhausted its options. What strategy will the ECB follow now? In the United States, the distinction between monetary and fiscal policy already seems to be blurring.
Property Tax
In mid-June 2019, the coalition partners agreed on a compromise for the reform of property tax. Although it provides for uniform calculation of the tax nationwide based on the value of land and the average rent, it gives the Laender scope for individual options by means of a so-called flexibility clause. The new rules necessitate the amendment of the Basic Law: The federal government is to be given legislative power over property tax. The Bundesrat and Bundestag approved the amendment.
Public Finances
The debate on the composition of public finances in terms of revenue and expenditure is at the heart of the design of economic policy. Sound public finances are crucial not only for current development, but especially for the burden on future generations. How must public finances be structured so that the state can continue to fulfil its tasks in the future?
Labor Market
Germany’s labor market has seen positive development in recent years. Other European countries are struggling with youth unemployment and the emigration of young people. In Germany, comprehensive reforms made it possible to greatly reduce the mass unemployment of the 1990s and to integrate immigrants into the labor market.
Structural Policies
In many European countries, there is a huge discrepancy between living conditions in booming centers and disconnected regions. To mitigate this effect, the EU makes funds available for regional policy measures through the European structural and investment funds.
Globalization
Globalization, or the continually increasing integration of the worldwide goods, labour and capital markets, presents great opportunities, but also comes with many perils. Appropriate economic policy framework conditions are required at a national and international level for the opportunities to lead to real benefits in terms of prosperity. Economists have always extolled the advantages of free trade.
War in Ukraine
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not only a military and geopolitical turning point. It is also changing the economic situation. This affects both the short-term economic trend and the medium-term prospects for growth and prosperity.
Education Comparisons
Students in some countries perform much better on international achievement tests than students in other countries. Is this all due to socioeconomic and cultural differences, or do school systems make a difference? Our research based on the micro data of international student tests such as PISA and TIMSS suggests that school systems are indeed very important.
Brexit
Skepticism has always been a feature of the UK’s relationship with Europe, culminating with a referendum in 2016 when 51.9 percent of UK citizens voted to leave the European Union. This makes the United Kingdom the first member state in the history of the European Union to leave the international community. Following the official withdrawal on January 31, 2020, a transition period ran until the end of 2020. After nearly a year of negotiations, the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) was applied provisionally as of January 1, 2021, and entered into force on May 1, 2021.
Gender Economics
The debate on gender equality has many facets. From an economic perspective, participation in the labor market is an important factor for economic growth.
Sustainable Prosperity
In recent decades, economic growth driven by economic openness and globalization has brought prosperity to billions of people and reduced global poverty. However, this welcome development has been accompanied by a high burden on the environment and an erosion of the natural foundations of life. However, economic growth at the expense of the environment has its limits. Natural resources also fulfill essential economic functions. Long-term economic prosperity will only be possible if the overexploitation of nature is stopped.
Free Trade
Free trade leads to all countries producing exactly those goods for which they have comparative advantages; i.e., producing them with less resource input than other goods. It thus increases people’s consumption options compared to a situation without trade (autarky). In the longer term, specialization through trade also allows for stronger productivity growth.
Eastern Germany
30 years after the reunification a positive balance can be drawn. The economic “reconstruction of the East” has largely been completed. Driven by politics and supported by private investment, productivity and wages have risen sharply in the new Länder over the past 30 years.
Economic Policy Agenda 2021–2025
The starting position of Germany’s first post-Merkel government is not an easy one. Even before the coronavirus crisis, there were considerable challenges ahead. What should the next federal government’s economic and financial policies focus on?
Systems Competition
The third type of inter-system competition involves Western democracies competing with authoritarian forms of state capitalism that can be found in China, but also, in slightly different forms, in Russia and other smaller states like Vietnam.