What does the Forum New Economy do?

Experts around the world are working to develop better answers to the great challenges of our time – with the aim of achieving sustainable prosperity for all. Supporting these ideas and confronting them with real-world scenarios is one of the main tasks of this Forum.

Modern democracies today are confronted with a deep crisis of confidence that three decades of poorly managed globalization and exaggerated faith in the efficiency of markets have contributed to. While markets may produce huge benefits, an all too orthodox belief in their merits has left behind a raft of challenges that now threaten to overwhelm our societies. To solve this crisis and prevent populists from filling the vacuum, governments need more than just answers to specific policy challenges. If we are to restore the credibility of our democracies, a new narrative and policy framework is required that recognizes the limitations of markets, lays out a more innovative role for the state and broadens our view of what comprises economic success. To regain confidence in the future, people must believe that policy-makers are driven by a vision of society in which the fruits of economic activity are shared broadly and where people exercise real control.

To accelerate the emergence of such a new guiding principle in economic policy is one of the main goals of this Forum. As a critical part of a growing international network, the Forum generates and supports new overarching responses to the major challenges of our time – be it climate change, inequality or financial market instability.

The team

In a highly dynamic team, six employees and three fellows work at the frontier between new economic thinking and policy making.

Isabella Wedl

Senior Advisor on Climate Policy

Fellows

Who supports the Forum
New Economy?

Since its inception, the Forum New Economy has built up a network of national and international partner organisations and has collaborated with numerous renowned economists and academics from other disciplines.

Our academic partners

The Forum is supported by a group of high-level academic partners, among them Nobel laureates and leading international and German economists.

Jens Südekum

Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

Tom Krebs

Professor of Economics, University of Mannheim; Senior Fellow Forum New Economy

Mariana Mazzucato

Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London

Dani Rodrik

Harvard University

Isabella Weber

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Adam Tooze

Columbia University

Xavier Ragot

Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE), Paris

Michael Jacobs

University of Sheffield; Economic Change Unit

Mark Blyth

Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University

Our partner organisations

The Forum collaborates with a network of leading institutions, including the OECD, DIW Berlin, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the European Climate Foundation, the Jacques Delors Institute, the Global Solutions Initiative, the World Inequality Lab, and OFCE in Paris.

OUR MAIN TOPICS

New Paradigm

NEW PARADIGM

After decades of overly naive market belief, we urgently need new answers to the great challenges of our time. More so, we need a whole new paradigm to guide us. We collect everything about the people and the community who are dealing with the question of a new paradigm and who analyze the historical and present impact of paradigms and narratives – whether in new contributions, performances, books and events.

Redefining
the role of
the state

REDEFINING
THE ROLE OF
THE STATE

For decades, there was a consensus that reducing the role of the state and cutting public debt would generate wealth. This contributed to a chronic underinvestment in education and public infrastructure. New research focuses on establishing when and how governments need to intervene to better contribute to long-term prosperity and to stabilize rather than aggravate economic fluctuations.

Remaking
finance

REMAKING
FINANCE

More than a decade after the financial crisis there still seems to be something seriously wrong with the financial system. Financial markets still tend to periodically misprice risk and contribute to boom and bust cycles. A better financial system needs to discourage short-termism and speculative activity, curtail systemic risk and distribute wealth more broadly.

Greening
prosperity

GREENING
PROSPERITY

During the high point of market orthodoxy, economists argued that the most 'efficient' way to combat climate change was to simply let markets determine the price of carbon emissions. Today, there is a growing consensus that prices need to be regulated and that a carbon price on its own might not be enough.

Reducing
inequality

REDUCING
INEQUALITY

The rising gap between rich and poor has become a threat to social cohesion in most rich countries. To reverse this trend it will be crucial to better understand the importance of different drivers of income and wealth inequality.

Innovation Lab

INNOVATION LAB

Do we need a whole new understanding of economic growth? What would be a real alternative? How viable are alternatives to GDP when it comes to measuring prosperity? These and other more fundamental challenges are what this section is about.

Globalization
for all

GLOBALIZATION
FOR ALL

After three decades of poorly managed integration, globalization is threatened by social discontent and the rise of populist forces. A new paradigm will need better ways not only to compensate the groups that have lost, but to distribute the gains more broadly from the start.

Europe
beyond markets

EUROPE
BEYOND MARKETS

The euro was planned during a period in which economic policy making was driven by a deep belief in market liberalism and the near impossibility of systemic financial crises. This belief has been brought into question since the euro crisis, which showed that panics do happen. New thinking needs to focus on developing mechanisms to protect eurozone countries from such panics and to foster economic convergence between members.

Corona Crisis

CORONA CRISIS

The current Corona crisis is probably the worst economic crisis of the post-World War 2 era. Economists are working hard on mitigating the economic effects caused by COVID-19 to prevent a second Great Depression, the break-up of the Eurozone and the end of globalisation. We collect the most important contributions.