ZEWnews SEEK Special Edition on the 2014 Fourth Annual SEEK Conference

Fiscal policy and public debt, inequalities in income and wealth across Europe, and perspectives on a European fiscal union – these topics were central to the fourth conference of the research programme SEEK (Strengthening Efficiency and Competitiveness in the European Knowledge Economies) hosted by ZEW on May 15 and 16, 2014. The SEEK special edition of the ZEWnews gives an overview of the event with more than 150 international attendees from the political, economic and academic sphere. The issue offers a summary of all presentations, among them the lectures by the former Federal Minister of Finance Hans Eichel and the former Minister of Finance of Portugal, Prof. Vítor Gaspar. It also features the keynote speech given by Prof. Thomas Piketty, Paris School of Economics, whose book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” has been in the international bestseller lists for months.