ZEW Symposium for Prof Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinz König

Environment, innovation and employment: Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinz König, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, got a very special present from the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). The Mannheim-based economic research institute organised a symposium in which economic research results on topical questions were presented.

The panoply of topics discussed ranged from environmental innovations and their value for companies to employment problems of the low-skilled, and the question of the extent to which the inflation rate in Germany is overstated due to measuring errors of the German cost-of-living index. By means of this symposium, the ZEW honours a man who, as the Director of Science and Research between 1991 and 1997, played a crucial role in the successful establishment of the institute. 

König’s achievement as a professor at the University of Mannheim, where he also held the rector’s chair for various years, was given visible expression in the fact that a large number of his former students, who in the meantime had taken their academic degrees themselves, attended the ZEW event in Mannheim. As it had already been emphasised in the opening speech delivered by his successor as Director of Science and Research and also a former student of König’s himself, Prof Dr. Wolfgang Franz, a narrow limitation of topics was deliberately avoided for the symposium. Instead, the spectrum of economic topics to be discussed was supposed to be as diverse as possible. The intention was to take into account König’s broad range of interests in the field of economics.

The opening address dealt with the significance of environmental innovations for companies and asked for the reasons why companies invest in environmental innovations. The following contribution analysed the question whether and to what extent collaborations in the field of research and development actually pay off for companies which enter into such collaborations. A further question addressed in the symposium was the extent to which technological change and the growing international trade is responsible for the increasingly problematic employment situation for lower-skilled workers in Germany. Furthermore, it was discussed to what extent interest rate and exchange rate expectations can be forecasted in the financial markets and whether external economic-political events (e.g. the EU Economic Summit) have an impact on the expectations of financial market experts. Last but not least, the final presentation, set against the backdrop of the debate on the Consumer Price Index in the US, contained the provocative and hotly discussed assertion that the German cost-of-living index is also very likely to overstate the actual price increase.

For further information please contact

Gunter Grittmann, Phone: +49 (0)621/1235-132, E-mail: grittmann@zew.de