Fünf Thesen zu den zukünftigen Herausforderungen für die Wirtschaftspolitik

The economic policy issues of our time are becoming increasingly complex and complicated—just as are their solutions. Five challenges in particular are playing a central role for developed economies like Germany: firstly, growing criticism of international trade; secondly, increasing doubt about the reasonableness of further economic growth; thirdly, increasingly complex distributional conflicts; fourthly, diminishing political scope for policy actions by national governments; and fifthly, increased system competition between market economies and emerging markets. The corona pandemic will exacerbate numerous economic problems such as income inequality, the debts of states and companies, and growing protectionism. A central challenge for economic policy in Germany is that the conflicts of objectives are increasing while the possibilities for solutions in national policy-making are decreasing. It is becoming increasingly difficult to focus on allocation efficiency without considering issues of income and wealth distribution, environmental and climate impacts, immaterial aspects of life, etc. The development of appropriate economic policy responses to these challenges will therefore become even more demanding in the future than already being the case. The need for a theory and evidence-based economic policy that address these conflicting goals is growing. What is needed are long-term sets of measures that take into account the interactions between different policy areas. This also requires greater cooperation between different scientific disciplines and a greater variety of methods in research.