Insights Blog
How to Reverse the EU's Division and Support Recovery
SCEPA Climate Economics Director Willi Semmler and co-authors Francesco Saraceno and Brigitte Young published a new article asking how the European Union (EU) can recover its sense of common purpose after the Covid-19 crisis exacerbated division between and among member countries. The authors recommend a shared policy agenda for recovery to ensure Europe’s resilience in the face of future crises. The economic and political consequences of the union’s divergence between core and periphery,...
Policy makers need to strengthen older workers’ fallback positions.
A realistic look at the disempowered status of America’s older workers and their rocky path to a secure retirement.
Brief— Workers at all earnings levels would benefit from expanding Social Security. SCEPA proposes defaulting workers into “Catch-Up” contributions, where— starting at age 50— they would contribute an additional 3.1% of their salary. 
Adding green bonds to current carbon taxes is the most effective strategy to achieve global environmental goals, according to research by SCEPA economist Willi Semmler and economists at the Economics Research Institute in Berlin (DIW).
Brief— Social Security benefits are progressive and reduce the unequal distribution of retirement wealth generated by a broken employer-based retirement system.
SCEPA economists published a World Bank working paper arguing that both the carbon tax and green bonds are needed to mitigate climate change while sharing the cost across generations.
SCEPA economists worked with the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) on their June 2019 evaluation of the IMF’s advice on unconventional monetary policies.
Economist Willi Semmler, director of SCEPA’s Economics of Climate Change project, co-authored an IMF Working Paper modeling how climate disasters affect population segments, infrastructure, housing, and private capital, possibly leading to poverty traps.
