Felix Bierbrauer will present his latest research in the upcoming ECONtribute Webinar. On a regulary basis, Cluster members present one of the nine Cluster’s Research Areas and their current research to the research community. The webinar includes a presentation as well as a Q&A afterwards and will be held via Zoom.

Date and time: 13th of May, 12:00-13:00h CET.

Please register here for the seminar.

Politically feasible reforms of non-linear tax systems

Felix Bierbrauer, Professor of Economics, ECONtribute, University of Cologne

At the webinar, Felix Bierbrauer presents a conceptual framework for the analysis of politically feasible tax reforms. First, he proves a median voter theorem for monotonic reforms of non-linear tax systems. This yields a characterization of reforms that are preferred by a majority of individuals over the status quo and hence politically feasible. Second, he shows that every Pareto-efficient tax system is such that moving towards lower tax rates for below-median incomes and towards higher rates for above median incomes is politically feasible. Third, he develops a method for diagnosing whether a given tax system admits reforms that are politically feasible and/or welfare-improving.

More information about Felix Bierbrauer and his work.

The webinar was held on 13th of May 2020. You can watch the recorded session below:

Wealth Distribution in Germany: Release of new ECONtribute Study at Federal Ministry of Finance

On March 12 the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy will release its first major policy study on “The distribution of wealth in Germany, 1895 to 2018”. ECONtribute professor Moritz Schularick will exclusively handover the study to Olaf Scholz, German Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister of Finance, at a high-level conference at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Berlin.

The study presents first long run evidence on the distribution of wealth in Germany from the period of industrialization until the present day, 1895 to 2018. It provides novel evidence and an encompassing picture of wealth inequality across the entire German population by combining wealth tax data, household balance sheets, survey data and wealth rankings. The study highlights important, policy-relevant aspects of the recent development of wealth inequality in Germany.

The Federal Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz, will discuss the political implications of these novel findings. Prof. Thomas Piketty from the Paris School of Economics will discuss the results from an international perspective.

The study “The distribution of wealth in Germany, 1895 to 2018” by Moritz Schularick (ECONtribute, University of Bonn), Thilo Albers (HU Berlin) and Charlotte Bartels (DIW Berlin) will be available on March 12 on this website.

Downloadable Content

Study (English)

Study Summary (English)

Study Summary (German)

Integrität: Bedeutung und Herausforderung für ein global agierendes Unternehmen

ECONtribute Public Discourse in Kooperation mit dem Institut für Wirtschaftspolitik (IWP) an der Universität zu Köln und der Dr. Jürgen Meyer Stiftung

18:15 Begrüßung (Prof. Bernd Irlenbusch)

18:20 Vorstellung der Dr. Jürgen Meyer Stiftung (RA Rüdiger Winkler)

18:30 Laudationes und Preisverleihungen (RA Rüdiger Winkler, Dekan Prof. Ulrich Thonemann)

18:45 Vortrag: „Integrität – Bedeutung und Herausforderung für ein global agierendes Unternehmen“ (Hiltrud Werner)

19:30 Q&A

gegen 20:15 Empfang mit Imbiss und Getränken

gegen 21:30 Ende der Veranstaltung

Die Veranstaltung ist offen für Lehrende und Studierende der Universität zu Köln und der Universität Bonn und für interessierte Bürger*innen.

Mehr Informationen

Wiesbaden, 6 November 2019

The German Council of Economic Experts has presented its annual report entitled “Dealing with Structural Change” to the German Federal Government today. “In order to seize the opportunities presented by structural change, Germany does not need to reinvent its economic and industrial policy, but it should develop them further”, said Christoph M. Schmidt, chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts.

The German Council of Economic Experts is an independent academic body advising German policymakers on questions of economic policy. It was founded in 1963, and currently consists of five members: Prof. Dr. Christoph M. Schmidt, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Lars P. Feld, Prof. Dr. Isabel Schnabel, Prof. Dr. Achim Truger and Prof. Volker Wieland, Ph.D. Prof. Schnabel is also Spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute and Director of the Reinhard Selten Institute and Professor of Finance at University of Bonn.

Prof. Schnabel will present the report on Monday Nov 25, 17:45 at University of Cologne, WiSo-Gebäude, Hörsaal XXIV  and on December 4, 6 pm at University of Bonn, Juridicum, Lecture Hall C.

The Reinhard Selten Institute (RSI) and the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute congratulate Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo (both Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Michael Kremer (Harvard University) for being awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”.

The Nobel Laureate’s research focuses on the pressing question on how to fight global poverty. “They changed the way economists think about measures to reduce global poverty by introducing rigorous field experiments to development economics”, states Bettina Rockenbach (RSI Director). For example, their experimental approach showed that reforms that match teaching to children’s learning levels are of great value, improving education for over 60 million pupils in India and Africa. “By identifying causal effects for poverty and testing and evaluating the impact of possible interventions, e.g. in the fields of health, education, or resource conservation, the laureates not only significantly contributed to economic research, but also to global poverty reduction”, Bettina Rockenbach concludes.

Current research insights on the topic were also presented during the recent Selten Lecture by Matthew O. Jackson (Stanford University). Jackson’s joint research with Banerjee, Duflo and Arun G. Chandrasekhar (Stanford University) explores how the introduction of microfinance changes the networks of interactions among households in Indian villages.

More information

Picture: © Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences