In response to Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union (EU) and its allies imposed broad export bans against Russia. Besides exerting economic pressure on the aggressor, a central objective was to cut Russia off from critical technologies needed to produce...

This policy brief examines the economic importance of Iran and neighboring countries relying on the Strait of Hormuz for trade flows of the EU and Germany. It then assesses the potential impact of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which would significantly disrupt trade in the region.

High and persistent inflation, observed in Europe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis triggered by Russiaʼs war of aggression against Ukraine, can substantially shift tax burdens through fiscal drag - the tendency for rising nominal incomes to push taxpayers into higher...

The question of who ultimately bears the burden of corporate income tax is central to tax policy, with implications for both fairness and efficiency. Previous evidence for Germany suggested that workers absorb a large share through lower wages, raising concerns about the distributional...

By focusing exclusively on large multinational groups, the global minimum tax (GMT) aims to target most of the world's profit shifting while keeping aggregate compliance costs at an acceptable level. This policy brief presents new evidence on profit shifting behavior across the size distribution...

This Policy Brief examines economic expertsʼ expectations about the macroeconomic effects of import tariffs and trade policy uncertainty, based on the 2025Q2 and 2025Q3 waves of the Economic Expert Survey (EES). The survey collected responses from over 600 economists across EU member states and...

This policy brief examines European and US economic expertsʼ expectations and recommendations for tariffs on US, EU, and global imports at the end of 2025, as collected in the latest wave (2025Q2) of the Economic Expert Survey. The results show that economic experts in Europe expect...

As climate change intensifies, flood events are becoming more frequent and more destructive across Europe. In Germany, catastrophic floods in 2021 caused over EUR 40 billion in damages, prompting a large-scale government aid response. At the same time, only about 50 percent of residential...

Whatever the degree of success we achieve in curbing carbon emissions, the climate will be more inhospitable in the coming decades. Extreme weather events are already becoming the new normal. Therefore, along with renewing our mitigation efforts, we need to adapt, which basically entails...

The European Union faces several simultaneous threats to its competitiveness: weakness in the industries of the future, insufficient innovation, expensive energy, the need to green its economy, and geopolitical and trade shifts, to name but a few. The EconPol Europe Annual Conference, on whose...