ZEW Joins New Research Network EconPol Europe

The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, has become one of the nine founding institutions of the European Network for Economic and Fiscal Policy Research (EconPol for short). As an international and independent network bringing together several hundred researchers, EconPol Europe is establishing a new voice for research in the discussion surrounding the future of economic and fiscal policy in the European Union. Headed by the Munich-based ifo Institute, the founding charter for EconPol Europe was signed on 22 June 2017.

Within the framework of EconPol, researchers from seven different countries will soon be looking into how cross-border cooperation can be used to deal with financial and economic issues facing Europe. The combined expertise of the partner institutions will be used to introduce new ideas and solutions into the most pressing debates over the future of the EU. Alongside ZEW and ifo, the other partner institutions are the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS, Brussels), the Centre d’Études Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales (CEPII, Paris), the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS, Vienna), the Toulouse School of Economics, the University of Oxford (Centre for Business Taxation), the Università di Trento (Department for Economics and Management) and the VATT Institute for Economic Research (VATT, Helsinki).

“The collaborative nature of the research carried out by European researchers thanks to this network will bolster Europe-wide acceptance of the findings obtained,” explains ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach. The specific tasks of EconPol Europe include collaborative interdisciplinary research in the fields of sustainable growth and best practice, EU policy and budget reform, capital markets and regulation of the financial sector, governance and macroeconomic policy in the European Economic and Monetary Union, as well as the transfer of new knowledge and insights gained in this research. The founding of EconPol Europe was made possible as an initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Finance.