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Climate protection and conventional municipal fiscal equalisation do not match. This somewhat sobering finding from the study conducted by FiFo Köln together with Thomas Döring (sofia Darmstadt) for the Land North Rhine-Westphalia prompts us to take an innovative approach. With the climate impact approach, we present a concept - not yet ready-to-use - for combining targeted municipal climate protection, modern fiscal performance orientation and the reduction of administrative burdens. In its second focus, the study analyses the advantages and disadvantages of multi-year tax capacity measurement in fiscal equalisation. The German Report is published today as FiFo Report No. 34.

The European Union needs to become more capable - also, but not only, for future enlargements. Cohesion policy is still part of the problem. However, it can become more part of the solution again, argues Michael Thöne, once the fiscal architecture of cohesion policy is openly acknowledged in its function also as a European financial equalisation and refined in a more subsidiary manner. The paper is published simultaneously in German as FiFo Discussion Paper 24-02 and in English as ZEW Discussion Paper 24-038.

The people in small towns identify particularly strongly with their companies, and the companies with their towns. Often, both face the same challenges: Skilled labour, housing, local transport. Nevertheless, there is less co-operation than is possible and sensible. This potential can be mobilised with the KOWIS approach, a concept for cooperative urban development in small towns developed by FiFo, GGR and IW Consult. The German report is now available as a BBSR publication.

The size of the government has a causal and positive effect on economic growth. In the new FiFo Discussion Paper 24-1, FiFo Policy Fellow Carsten Colombier uses a panel data set from 1880 to 2016 for 17 industrialised countries to show that the real world and growth theory do not always align. However, the positive growth effect is small and does not apply to any given kind of government spending. Obviously, it remains important to strengthen the efficiency and quality of public finances.

⁠Meeting the global Sustainble Development Goals seems increasingly out of reach. Their funding is too scarce and unreliable. How could additional financing sources - especially taxes - ensure those needs are fulfilled? What criteria should be taken into account? In a ‘Deep Dive’ at the Global Solutions Summit 2024 at ESMT Berlin, Michael Thöne discusses the prospects of the emerging concept with Quentin Parrinello, José Siaba Serrate and Christian Kastrop.