ARTICLE | A recent article from Intereconomics, co-authored by Willi Semmler, director of SCEPA’s Economics of Climate Change project, argues that as governments struggle to regain economic strength amid the coronavirus pandemic, reconstruction programs must initiate the great green transition.

POLICY NOTE | SCEPA’s latest policy note by Senior Fellow William M. Rodgers III, former chief economist at the US Department of Labor, highlights a potential headwind to recovery from COVID-19.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | An additional 3.1 million older workers will fall into lifelong poverty in retirement. Overall, the 67 million older workers and their spouses in the U.S. will suffer a decrease of 7 percentage points in their retirement replacement rate.

ARTICLE | The Journal Makronom, based in Germany, recently published a piececo-authored by Economist Willi Semmler, director of SCEPA’s Economics of Climate Change project, on COVID-19 and climate change.

ARTICLE | Germany’s Die Zeit, one of Germany’s most influential newspapers, featured the work of Economist Willi Semmler, director of SCEPA’s Economics of Climate Change project, on climate policy and strategy.

RELAB ARTICLE | Policy makers need to strengthen older workers’ fallback positions.

RELAB ARTICLE | A retirement crisis looms as the labor market becomes less friendly to older workers when they are most numerous and least able to retire.

RELAB ARTICLE | The stratification economics framework may best clarify the causes of racial health disparities and help to develop policy solutions.

RELAB ARTICLE | A realistic look at the disempowered status of America’s older workers and their rocky path to a secure retirement.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | 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.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Older workers are more likely than younger workers to think they can’t find a job comparable to their current one, a well-founded fear that persists at every earnings level and reflects the reality of an unfriendly labor market.

WORKING PAPER | 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.

ARTICLE | 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).

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Social Security benefits are progressive and reduce the unequal distribution of retirement wealth generated by a broken employer-based retirement systemSocial Security benefits are progressive and reduce the unequal distribution of retirement wealth generated by a broken employer-based retirement system.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Older workers have higher levels of financial fragility than in 2006, before the Great Recession.

WORKING PAPER | 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.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Over the past three decades, older workers’ wages declined and lagged behind younger workers’ wages.

IMF WORKING PAPER | 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.

RELAB WORKING PAPER | Social Security benefits are progressive and reduce the unequal distribution of retirement wealth generated by a broken employer-based retirement systeThe Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) can cause wage declines for workers who do not receive the tax credit. 

ARTICLE | Workers in low-wage households are more likely to experience economic shocks and to withdraw from their retirement accounts, exacerbating pre-existing inequalities in the retirement savings system.