RWI – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung
Das RWI ist Partner des YES! – Young Economic Summit seit 2018.
Das RWI – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung ist eines der führenden Zentren für wissenschaftliche Forschung und evidenzbasierte Politikberatung in Deutschland und Mitglied der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
Wirtschaft geht jeden etwas an: Im RWI – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung erforschen Wissenschaftler, was warum und mit welchen Folgen für den Einzelnen und die Gesellschaft in der Wirtschaft passiert. Das Institut unterstützt mit diesen Forschungen die Politik, liefert wichtige Grundlagen für deren Entscheidungen und bewertet politische Maßnahmen. Dazu forscht das RWI in allen Ebenen – vom Individuum bis zur Weltwirtschaft – in vier Kompetenzbereichen: „Arbeitsmärkte, Bildung, Bevölkerung“, „Gesundheit“, „Umwelt und Ressourcen“ sowie „Wachstum, Konjunktur, Öffentliche Finanzen“. Das „FDZ Ruhr am RWI“ versorgt die Wissenschaftler mit aktuellsten Zahlen. Zudem möchte das RWI als öffentlich finanziertes Forschungsinstitut wirtschaftliche Zusammenhänge verständlich der Öffentlichkeit vermitteln – damit jeder Wirtschaft versteht.
Das RWI im Internet und Social Web
Homepage: www.rwi-essen.de
Twitter: @RWI_Essen
Facebook: @RWI.Essen
Flickr: RWI_Essen
RWI – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung
Das RWI ist Partner des YES! – Young Economic Summit seit 2018.
Das RWI – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung ist eines der führenden Zentren für wissenschaftliche Forschung und evidenzbasierte Politikberatung in Deutschland und Mitglied der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
Wirtschaft geht jeden etwas an: Im RWI – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung erforschen Wissenschaftler, was warum und mit welchen Folgen für den Einzelnen und die Gesellschaft in der Wirtschaft passiert. Das Institut unterstützt mit diesen Forschungen die Politik, liefert wichtige Grundlagen für deren Entscheidungen und bewertet politische Maßnahmen. Dazu forscht das RWI in allen Ebenen – vom Individuum bis zur Weltwirtschaft – in vier Kompetenzbereichen: „Arbeitsmärkte, Bildung, Bevölkerung“, „Gesundheit“, „Umwelt und Ressourcen“ sowie „Wachstum, Konjunktur, Öffentliche Finanzen“. Das „FDZ Ruhr am RWI“ versorgt die Wissenschaftler mit aktuellsten Zahlen. Zudem möchte das RWI als öffentlich finanziertes Forschungsinstitut wirtschaftliche Zusammenhänge verständlich der Öffentlichkeit vermitteln – damit jeder Wirtschaft versteht.
Das RWI im Internet und Social Web
RWI-Themen für das YES! 2019
Forschende am RWI und Teilnehmer am YES!
Einmal Westen, einmal Süd-Westen
Wir haben es uns nicht leicht gemacht. Unter all den starken Teams in diesem Jahr, die es nicht direkt ins Bundesfinale geschafft haben, wollten wir zwei Wildcards vergeben – also zwei Startplätze im Finale für Teams, die es aus unserer Sicht verdient haben, dabei zu sein. In diesem Jahr dürfen sich das Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium aus Bad Salzuflen und das Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium aus Maxdorf freuen. Wir sind gespannt auf euch im Bundesfinale.
Beide Teams hatten sich in ihren Regionalfinalen stark präsentiert, was uns sehr beeindruckt hat. Das Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium aus Bad Salzuflen überzeugte uns mit ihrem Beitrag zum Klimaschutz und dem Versuch, den Zertifkatehandel für CO2-Emissionen in Europa neu zu regeln. Unterstützt wurden sie von Herrn Sommer, vom RWI aus Essen zum Thema “Climate change is costly, but so is mitigation: What policies are most cost-effective?“.
Das Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium im Süd-Westen entwickelte ein Konzept, wie immigrierten Frauen der Einstieg in die Arbeitswelt erleichtert werden könnte. Das Thema “Access to the German labour market: How can we strengthen the integration of refugees?” wurde von Frau Dr. Sommerfeld, Frau Gallegos Torres und Herr Berbée vom ZEW aus Mannheim gestellt.
Wir fanden beide Beiträge sehr einfallsreich und werten aus unserer Sicht das eh schon sehr starke Bundesfinale noch weiter auf.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an die beiden Teams,
Euer YES!-Team
Aktuelle Meldungen
Die Wildcard Teams 2020
Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium Maxdorf und Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium Bad Salzufflen als Wildcard Teams im Bundesfinale
The exciting final of the regional finales
In the south-east region, Friedrich-Koenig-Gymnasium from Würzburg and Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium from Ulm prevailed.
South-West region – a close race for the top spots
Winners in the south-west region are Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium from Stuttgart and the European School RheinMain from Bad Vilbel.
There was some action in the West
#3 of 2020! The winners of the regional final West are the Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium from Langenfeld and the Regiomontanus Gymnasium from Hassfurt.
The North has voted
Gymnasium Buckhorn from Hamburg and Immanuel Kant School from Neumünster win the regional final North 2020.
YES! mit dem Meritum-Preis der Deutschen Wirtschaft 2020 ausgezeichnet
YES! erhält Meritum-Förderpreis 2020
Preisverleihung im BMWi
Unsere vier Gewinnerteams präsentierten ihre Ideen in Berlin.
Drei neue Partner ab 2020
Drei weitere neue Partner für 2020: DICE, ECONtribute und CWS an der Uni Hannover
Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium
Bad Salzuflen
Finalist for the region West (Wildcard team)
CLIMATE CHANGE IS COSTLY, BUT SO IS MITIGATION – PHASE X
As we discovered in our research, the European Emission Trading System poses as a great opportunity to fight climate change. However, there are also things to be fixed about it. In the following, we will try to explain to you how the European Emission Trading System works and what ought to be changed.
Since over time the number of outstanding certificates will be decreased, the price for an externality such as carbon dioxide will increase. What you would expect is a gradually rising price in the European Emission Trading System. Even though the system should have become stricter in the different phases, prices are not rising. Journalists call the current system broken or announced it failed. 1
As we identified both problems and opportunities, we came up with a plan to fix the European Emission Trading System. We call it PHASE X.
Since only European factories are bound to the emission trading system, we want to implement a carbon tax system into the European Emission Trading System. Products imported from countries without a carbon pricing plan will be charged with carbon tariffs. Since other countries will try to prevent overpaying, they are also incentivized to create a carbon pricing plan of their own urging a domino effect. Because if we don’t manage to treat all nations the same, the fight against climate change will fail.
Inequality has to be acted upon. When researching, we discovered another issue that states the incoherency of the European Emission Trading System just as much. Since not all sectors are bound to the European Emission Trading System, the price will be not as efficient as it could be. Other sectors get much of their certificates handed out very cheap due to free allocation. In all honesty: It makes no sense to praise market efficiency if you do not treat everyone equally. Therefore we concluded two more demands.
First of all, all sectors have to be covered by the European Emission Trading System. It is just unfair if some sectors get exceptions from what everybody has contributed to.
And second of all, there should not be any free allocation for the same reason. If some sectors get more free certificates than others, markets are not able to determine those places in the economy where it cost the fewest to save upon carbon dioxide.
1 Matthew Sinclair, Tax Payers Alliance, THE EXPENSIVE FAILURE OFTHE EUROPEAN UNION MISSIONS TRADING SCHEME https://www.cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/matt-sinclairs-ets-study-oct-09.pdf
Their YES! topic
Climate change is costly, but so is mitigation: What policies are most cost-effective?
by Stephan Sommer, RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research
According to UN secretary-general António Guterres, climate change is “the most systematic threat to humankind”. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, rising greenhouse gas emissions have led to an increase in global mean temperatures, extreme weather events, and sea level.
Despite several UN conferences on climate change, governments have only tentatively tackled its causes and consequences. However, there is accumulating scientific evidence that rapid and decisive action is required to limit the consequences of climate change.
A call for action is famously put forward by the Fridays-for-Future movement. Triggered by this movement, the German government has recently agreed upon a new climate protection program that contains a multitude of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Specifically, it avails pecuniary measures, such as a carbon tax and subsidies, but also non-pecuniary measures like energy audits and energy standards. The measures directly address the transportation, building, and agricultural sectors. They comprise a mix of penalties and compensations for citizens and companies to incentivize climate-friendly behaviour.
There are at least three potential shortcomings of this program: First, it is debatable whether the measures it contains are sufficient to reduce Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions to accomplish the goals formulated in the Paris Agreement. Second, climate change can only be mitigated if it is tackled globally, which requires moving beyond unilateral action to multinational cooperation. Third, climate protection measures entail costs, which may unduly burden vulnerable segments of society via higher energy bills, requiring an adequate accompanying social policy to address distributional effects.
Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium
Maxdorf
Finalist for the region South-West (Wildcard team)
The Shajara System
The Problem
During the past five years, some 700,000 female refugees have arrived in Germany – mainly from Africa and the Middle East. The German authorities already put in place multiple support programs that are supposed to foster the integration of female refugees. However, burdened with traumatic experiences, incapacitated by gender, education and culture-specific barriers and suffering from discrimination very few women actually sign up for these programs. While a vast majority of these female refugees is highly motivated to work, they face an uphill societal battle and their access to the German labour market is impaired. Their employment rate remains disappointingly low.
The Solution – Shajara (“tree“ in Arabic)
Roots (1)
The Rafiq develops a personal relationship with the female refugees and accompanies them on their integration journey.
Trunk (2)
The Rafiq encourages the female refugees to participate in training programs laying the ground for further integration steps.
Branches (3)
The qualifications acquired during the support programs allow the female refugees to successfully complete internships and vocational training.
Fruit (4)
The Rafiq’s mentoring leads both to labour market integration as well as integration into the broader society.
A Rafiq (“companion“ in Arabic)
- is a woman
- works on an honorary basis (with certain social security protection)
- combines visits to her clientele on their premises with appointments in her office in the local city hall
- keeps a close network with relevant authorities
- gets in-depth information on “all she needs to know” from the dedicated website www.Rafiq-Portal.de, e.g. Rafiq best practices, key contacts
Path Forward
Phase 1: pilot in 67133 Maxdorf in cooperation with a local NGO “NetzwerkHilfe” (https://en.netzwerk-hilfe.net) in the next 12 months
Phase 2: step-by-step rollout of Shajara System across Germany -> growing national network as committed Shajara alumni become new Rafiqs
Their YES! topic
Access to the German labour market: How can we strengthen the integration of refugees?
by Paul Berbée und Katia Gallegos Torres, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research
In recent years, over one million people have come to Germany to seek asylum. It currently looks as if most of them will not return to their countries of origin in the foreseeable future. From an economic point of view, there is much to be said for people who will be living in Germany for a more extended period. They should be integrated into the labour market as quickly and as well as possible: Only if fugitives have jobs do they pay contributions to social security funds. Quite apart from this, a job provides greater personal satisfaction, quick language acquisition and contacts with locals.
Current figures show that although more and more refugees are finding work in Germany, a large number of them still have great difficulty in gaining a permanent foothold in the labour market. At the same time, the German labour market has developed well in recent years, and companies are more concerned about how they can find enough workers in the future. Against this background, it is crucial to understand better which access routes to the labour market for refugees have the best chances of success and what are the biggest obstacles to integration. Based on the experience of recent years, innovative approaches are needed to ensure that the labour market integration of refugees can be successfully managed in the future.
In general:
– Which different actors play a role in the integration of refugees in your city/region? How can they get involved, and what difficulties do they face? What could be improved locally, and how could this be extended to other areas?
More concretely:
– How can companies quickly and easily find out what skills refugees bring with them if no meaningful certificates are available?
– How can refugees (and companies) more easily obtain information about the legal framework and the situation on the labour market?
– How can the language acquisition of fugitives and the acquisition of German school-leaving certificates be promoted?
– How can vocational schools and training companies adapt to refugees who have practical skills but little experience in the German education system?
Einmal Westen, einmal Süd-Westen
Wir haben es uns nicht leicht gemacht. Unter all den starken Teams in diesem Jahr, die es nicht direkt ins Bundesfinale geschafft haben, wollten wir zwei Wildcards vergeben – also zwei Startplätze im Finale für Teams, die es aus unserer Sicht verdient haben, dabei zu sein. In diesem Jahr dürfen sich das Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium aus Bad Salzuflen und das Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium aus Maxdorf freuen. Wir sind gespannt auf euch im Bundesfinale.
Beide Teams hatten sich in ihren Regionalfinalen stark präsentiert, was uns sehr beeindruckt hat. Das Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium aus Bad Salzuflen überzeugte uns mit ihrem Beitrag zum Klimaschutz und dem Versuch, den Zertifkatehandel für CO2-Emissionen in Europa neu zu regeln. Unterstützt wurden sie von Herrn Sommer, vom RWI aus Essen zum Thema “Climate change is costly, but so is mitigation: What policies are most cost-effective?“.
Das Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium im Süd-Westen entwickelte ein Konzept, wie immigrierten Frauen der Einstieg in die Arbeitswelt erleichtert werden könnte. Das Thema “Access to the German labour market: How can we strengthen the integration of refugees?” wurde von Frau Dr. Sommerfeld, Frau Gallegos Torres und Herr Berbée vom ZEW aus Mannheim gestellt.
Wir fanden beide Beiträge sehr einfallsreich und werten aus unserer Sicht das eh schon sehr starke Bundesfinale noch weiter auf.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an die beiden Teams,
Euer YES!-Team
Aktuelle Meldungen
Die Wildcard Teams 2020
Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium Maxdorf und Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium Bad Salzufflen als Wildcard Teams im Bundesfinale
The exciting final of the regional finales
In the south-east region, Friedrich-Koenig-Gymnasium from Würzburg and Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium from Ulm prevailed.
South-West region – a close race for the top spots
Winners in the south-west region are Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium from Stuttgart and the European School RheinMain from Bad Vilbel.
There was some action in the West
#3 of 2020! The winners of the regional final West are the Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium from Langenfeld and the Regiomontanus Gymnasium from Hassfurt.
The North has voted
Gymnasium Buckhorn from Hamburg and Immanuel Kant School from Neumünster win the regional final North 2020.
YES! mit dem Meritum-Preis der Deutschen Wirtschaft 2020 ausgezeichnet
YES! erhält Meritum-Förderpreis 2020
Preisverleihung im BMWi
Unsere vier Gewinnerteams präsentierten ihre Ideen in Berlin.
Drei neue Partner ab 2020
Drei weitere neue Partner für 2020: DICE, ECONtribute und CWS an der Uni Hannover
Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium
Bad Salzuflen
Finalist for the region West (Wildcard team)
CLIMATE CHANGE IS COSTLY, BUT SO IS MITIGATION – PHASE X
As we discovered in our research, the European Emission Trading System poses as a great opportunity to fight climate change. However, there are also things to be fixed about it. In the following, we will try to explain to you how the European Emission Trading System works and what ought to be changed.
Since over time the number of outstanding certificates will be decreased, the price for an externality such as carbon dioxide will increase. What you would expect is a gradually rising price in the European Emission Trading System. Even though the system should have become stricter in the different phases, prices are not rising. Journalists call the current system broken or announced it failed. 1
As we identified both problems and opportunities, we came up with a plan to fix the European Emission Trading System. We call it PHASE X.
Since only European factories are bound to the emission trading system, we want to implement a carbon tax system into the European Emission Trading System. Products imported from countries without a carbon pricing plan will be charged with carbon tariffs. Since other countries will try to prevent overpaying, they are also incentivized to create a carbon pricing plan of their own urging a domino effect. Because if we don’t manage to treat all nations the same, the fight against climate change will fail.
Inequality has to be acted upon. When researching, we discovered another issue that states the incoherency of the European Emission Trading System just as much. Since not all sectors are bound to the European Emission Trading System, the price will be not as efficient as it could be. Other sectors get much of their certificates handed out very cheap due to free allocation. In all honesty: It makes no sense to praise market efficiency if you do not treat everyone equally. Therefore we concluded two more demands.
First of all, all sectors have to be covered by the European Emission Trading System. It is just unfair if some sectors get exceptions from what everybody has contributed to.
And second of all, there should not be any free allocation for the same reason. If some sectors get more free certificates than others, markets are not able to determine those places in the economy where it cost the fewest to save upon carbon dioxide.
1 Matthew Sinclair, Tax Payers Alliance, THE EXPENSIVE FAILURE OFTHE EUROPEAN UNION MISSIONS TRADING SCHEME https://www.cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/matt-sinclairs-ets-study-oct-09.pdf
Their YES! topic
Climate change is costly, but so is mitigation: What policies are most cost-effective?
by Stephan Sommer, RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research
According to UN secretary-general António Guterres, climate change is “the most systematic threat to humankind”. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, rising greenhouse gas emissions have led to an increase in global mean temperatures, extreme weather events, and sea level.
Despite several UN conferences on climate change, governments have only tentatively tackled its causes and consequences. However, there is accumulating scientific evidence that rapid and decisive action is required to limit the consequences of climate change.
A call for action is famously put forward by the Fridays-for-Future movement. Triggered by this movement, the German government has recently agreed upon a new climate protection program that contains a multitude of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Specifically, it avails pecuniary measures, such as a carbon tax and subsidies, but also non-pecuniary measures like energy audits and energy standards. The measures directly address the transportation, building, and agricultural sectors. They comprise a mix of penalties and compensations for citizens and companies to incentivize climate-friendly behaviour.
There are at least three potential shortcomings of this program: First, it is debatable whether the measures it contains are sufficient to reduce Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions to accomplish the goals formulated in the Paris Agreement. Second, climate change can only be mitigated if it is tackled globally, which requires moving beyond unilateral action to multinational cooperation. Third, climate protection measures entail costs, which may unduly burden vulnerable segments of society via higher energy bills, requiring an adequate accompanying social policy to address distributional effects.
Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium
Maxdorf
Finalist for the region South-West (Wildcard team)
The Shajara System
The Problem
During the past five years, some 700,000 female refugees have arrived in Germany – mainly from Africa and the Middle East. The German authorities already put in place multiple support programs that are supposed to foster the integration of female refugees. However, burdened with traumatic experiences, incapacitated by gender, education and culture-specific barriers and suffering from discrimination very few women actually sign up for these programs. While a vast majority of these female refugees is highly motivated to work, they face an uphill societal battle and their access to the German labour market is impaired. Their employment rate remains disappointingly low.
The Solution – Shajara (“tree“ in Arabic)
Roots (1)
The Rafiq develops a personal relationship with the female refugees and accompanies them on their integration journey.
Trunk (2)
The Rafiq encourages the female refugees to participate in training programs laying the ground for further integration steps.
Branches (3)
The qualifications acquired during the support programs allow the female refugees to successfully complete internships and vocational training.
Fruit (4)
The Rafiq’s mentoring leads both to labour market integration as well as integration into the broader society.
A Rafiq (“companion“ in Arabic)
- is a woman
- works on an honorary basis (with certain social security protection)
- combines visits to her clientele on their premises with appointments in her office in the local city hall
- keeps a close network with relevant authorities
- gets in-depth information on “all she needs to know” from the dedicated website www.Rafiq-Portal.de, e.g. Rafiq best practices, key contacts
Path Forward
Phase 1: pilot in 67133 Maxdorf in cooperation with a local NGO “NetzwerkHilfe” (https://en.netzwerk-hilfe.net) in the next 12 months
Phase 2: step-by-step rollout of Shajara System across Germany -> growing national network as committed Shajara alumni become new Rafiqs
Their YES! topic
Access to the German labour market: How can we strengthen the integration of refugees?
by Paul Berbée und Katia Gallegos Torres, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research
In recent years, over one million people have come to Germany to seek asylum. It currently looks as if most of them will not return to their countries of origin in the foreseeable future. From an economic point of view, there is much to be said for people who will be living in Germany for a more extended period. They should be integrated into the labour market as quickly and as well as possible: Only if fugitives have jobs do they pay contributions to social security funds. Quite apart from this, a job provides greater personal satisfaction, quick language acquisition and contacts with locals.
Current figures show that although more and more refugees are finding work in Germany, a large number of them still have great difficulty in gaining a permanent foothold in the labour market. At the same time, the German labour market has developed well in recent years, and companies are more concerned about how they can find enough workers in the future. Against this background, it is crucial to understand better which access routes to the labour market for refugees have the best chances of success and what are the biggest obstacles to integration. Based on the experience of recent years, innovative approaches are needed to ensure that the labour market integration of refugees can be successfully managed in the future.
In general:
– Which different actors play a role in the integration of refugees in your city/region? How can they get involved, and what difficulties do they face? What could be improved locally, and how could this be extended to other areas?
More concretely:
– How can companies quickly and easily find out what skills refugees bring with them if no meaningful certificates are available?
– How can refugees (and companies) more easily obtain information about the legal framework and the situation on the labour market?
– How can the language acquisition of fugitives and the acquisition of German school-leaving certificates be promoted?
– How can vocational schools and training companies adapt to refugees who have practical skills but little experience in the German education system?
YES!-Themen von Matthias Westphal:
Karriereplanung und Geburtenlücke. Wie können Studium, Beruf und Familie in besseren Einklang gebracht werden?
Einmal Westen, einmal Süd-Westen
Wir haben es uns nicht leicht gemacht. Unter all den starken Teams in diesem Jahr, die es nicht direkt ins Bundesfinale geschafft haben, wollten wir zwei Wildcards vergeben – also zwei Startplätze im Finale für Teams, die es aus unserer Sicht verdient haben, dabei zu sein. In diesem Jahr dürfen sich das Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium aus Bad Salzuflen und das Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium aus Maxdorf freuen. Wir sind gespannt auf euch im Bundesfinale.
Beide Teams hatten sich in ihren Regionalfinalen stark präsentiert, was uns sehr beeindruckt hat. Das Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium aus Bad Salzuflen überzeugte uns mit ihrem Beitrag zum Klimaschutz und dem Versuch, den Zertifkatehandel für CO2-Emissionen in Europa neu zu regeln. Unterstützt wurden sie von Herrn Sommer, vom RWI aus Essen zum Thema “Climate change is costly, but so is mitigation: What policies are most cost-effective?“.
Das Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium im Süd-Westen entwickelte ein Konzept, wie immigrierten Frauen der Einstieg in die Arbeitswelt erleichtert werden könnte. Das Thema “Access to the German labour market: How can we strengthen the integration of refugees?” wurde von Frau Dr. Sommerfeld, Frau Gallegos Torres und Herr Berbée vom ZEW aus Mannheim gestellt.
Wir fanden beide Beiträge sehr einfallsreich und werten aus unserer Sicht das eh schon sehr starke Bundesfinale noch weiter auf.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an die beiden Teams,
Euer YES!-Team
Aktuelle Meldungen
Die Wildcard Teams 2020
Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium Maxdorf und Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium Bad Salzufflen als Wildcard Teams im Bundesfinale
The exciting final of the regional finales
In the south-east region, Friedrich-Koenig-Gymnasium from Würzburg and Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium from Ulm prevailed.
South-West region – a close race for the top spots
Winners in the south-west region are Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium from Stuttgart and the European School RheinMain from Bad Vilbel.
There was some action in the West
#3 of 2020! The winners of the regional final West are the Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium from Langenfeld and the Regiomontanus Gymnasium from Hassfurt.
The North has voted
Gymnasium Buckhorn from Hamburg and Immanuel Kant School from Neumünster win the regional final North 2020.
YES! mit dem Meritum-Preis der Deutschen Wirtschaft 2020 ausgezeichnet
YES! erhält Meritum-Förderpreis 2020
Preisverleihung im BMWi
Unsere vier Gewinnerteams präsentierten ihre Ideen in Berlin.
Drei neue Partner ab 2020
Drei weitere neue Partner für 2020: DICE, ECONtribute und CWS an der Uni Hannover
Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium
Bad Salzuflen
Finalist for the region West (Wildcard team)
CLIMATE CHANGE IS COSTLY, BUT SO IS MITIGATION – PHASE X
As we discovered in our research, the European Emission Trading System poses as a great opportunity to fight climate change. However, there are also things to be fixed about it. In the following, we will try to explain to you how the European Emission Trading System works and what ought to be changed.
Since over time the number of outstanding certificates will be decreased, the price for an externality such as carbon dioxide will increase. What you would expect is a gradually rising price in the European Emission Trading System. Even though the system should have become stricter in the different phases, prices are not rising. Journalists call the current system broken or announced it failed. 1
As we identified both problems and opportunities, we came up with a plan to fix the European Emission Trading System. We call it PHASE X.
Since only European factories are bound to the emission trading system, we want to implement a carbon tax system into the European Emission Trading System. Products imported from countries without a carbon pricing plan will be charged with carbon tariffs. Since other countries will try to prevent overpaying, they are also incentivized to create a carbon pricing plan of their own urging a domino effect. Because if we don’t manage to treat all nations the same, the fight against climate change will fail.
Inequality has to be acted upon. When researching, we discovered another issue that states the incoherency of the European Emission Trading System just as much. Since not all sectors are bound to the European Emission Trading System, the price will be not as efficient as it could be. Other sectors get much of their certificates handed out very cheap due to free allocation. In all honesty: It makes no sense to praise market efficiency if you do not treat everyone equally. Therefore we concluded two more demands.
First of all, all sectors have to be covered by the European Emission Trading System. It is just unfair if some sectors get exceptions from what everybody has contributed to.
And second of all, there should not be any free allocation for the same reason. If some sectors get more free certificates than others, markets are not able to determine those places in the economy where it cost the fewest to save upon carbon dioxide.
1 Matthew Sinclair, Tax Payers Alliance, THE EXPENSIVE FAILURE OFTHE EUROPEAN UNION MISSIONS TRADING SCHEME https://www.cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/matt-sinclairs-ets-study-oct-09.pdf
Their YES! topic
Climate change is costly, but so is mitigation: What policies are most cost-effective?
by Stephan Sommer, RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research
According to UN secretary-general António Guterres, climate change is “the most systematic threat to humankind”. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, rising greenhouse gas emissions have led to an increase in global mean temperatures, extreme weather events, and sea level.
Despite several UN conferences on climate change, governments have only tentatively tackled its causes and consequences. However, there is accumulating scientific evidence that rapid and decisive action is required to limit the consequences of climate change.
A call for action is famously put forward by the Fridays-for-Future movement. Triggered by this movement, the German government has recently agreed upon a new climate protection program that contains a multitude of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Specifically, it avails pecuniary measures, such as a carbon tax and subsidies, but also non-pecuniary measures like energy audits and energy standards. The measures directly address the transportation, building, and agricultural sectors. They comprise a mix of penalties and compensations for citizens and companies to incentivize climate-friendly behaviour.
There are at least three potential shortcomings of this program: First, it is debatable whether the measures it contains are sufficient to reduce Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions to accomplish the goals formulated in the Paris Agreement. Second, climate change can only be mitigated if it is tackled globally, which requires moving beyond unilateral action to multinational cooperation. Third, climate protection measures entail costs, which may unduly burden vulnerable segments of society via higher energy bills, requiring an adequate accompanying social policy to address distributional effects.
Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium
Maxdorf
Finalist for the region South-West (Wildcard team)
The Shajara System
The Problem
During the past five years, some 700,000 female refugees have arrived in Germany – mainly from Africa and the Middle East. The German authorities already put in place multiple support programs that are supposed to foster the integration of female refugees. However, burdened with traumatic experiences, incapacitated by gender, education and culture-specific barriers and suffering from discrimination very few women actually sign up for these programs. While a vast majority of these female refugees is highly motivated to work, they face an uphill societal battle and their access to the German labour market is impaired. Their employment rate remains disappointingly low.
The Solution – Shajara (“tree“ in Arabic)
Roots (1)
The Rafiq develops a personal relationship with the female refugees and accompanies them on their integration journey.
Trunk (2)
The Rafiq encourages the female refugees to participate in training programs laying the ground for further integration steps.
Branches (3)
The qualifications acquired during the support programs allow the female refugees to successfully complete internships and vocational training.
Fruit (4)
The Rafiq’s mentoring leads both to labour market integration as well as integration into the broader society.
A Rafiq (“companion“ in Arabic)
- is a woman
- works on an honorary basis (with certain social security protection)
- combines visits to her clientele on their premises with appointments in her office in the local city hall
- keeps a close network with relevant authorities
- gets in-depth information on “all she needs to know” from the dedicated website www.Rafiq-Portal.de, e.g. Rafiq best practices, key contacts
Path Forward
Phase 1: pilot in 67133 Maxdorf in cooperation with a local NGO “NetzwerkHilfe” (https://en.netzwerk-hilfe.net) in the next 12 months
Phase 2: step-by-step rollout of Shajara System across Germany -> growing national network as committed Shajara alumni become new Rafiqs
Their YES! topic
Access to the German labour market: How can we strengthen the integration of refugees?
by Paul Berbée und Katia Gallegos Torres, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research
In recent years, over one million people have come to Germany to seek asylum. It currently looks as if most of them will not return to their countries of origin in the foreseeable future. From an economic point of view, there is much to be said for people who will be living in Germany for a more extended period. They should be integrated into the labour market as quickly and as well as possible: Only if fugitives have jobs do they pay contributions to social security funds. Quite apart from this, a job provides greater personal satisfaction, quick language acquisition and contacts with locals.
Current figures show that although more and more refugees are finding work in Germany, a large number of them still have great difficulty in gaining a permanent foothold in the labour market. At the same time, the German labour market has developed well in recent years, and companies are more concerned about how they can find enough workers in the future. Against this background, it is crucial to understand better which access routes to the labour market for refugees have the best chances of success and what are the biggest obstacles to integration. Based on the experience of recent years, innovative approaches are needed to ensure that the labour market integration of refugees can be successfully managed in the future.
In general:
– Which different actors play a role in the integration of refugees in your city/region? How can they get involved, and what difficulties do they face? What could be improved locally, and how could this be extended to other areas?
More concretely:
– How can companies quickly and easily find out what skills refugees bring with them if no meaningful certificates are available?
– How can refugees (and companies) more easily obtain information about the legal framework and the situation on the labour market?
– How can the language acquisition of fugitives and the acquisition of German school-leaving certificates be promoted?
– How can vocational schools and training companies adapt to refugees who have practical skills but little experience in the German education system?
Einmal Westen, einmal Süd-Westen
Wir haben es uns nicht leicht gemacht. Unter all den starken Teams in diesem Jahr, die es nicht direkt ins Bundesfinale geschafft haben, wollten wir zwei Wildcards vergeben – also zwei Startplätze im Finale für Teams, die es aus unserer Sicht verdient haben, dabei zu sein. In diesem Jahr dürfen sich das Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium aus Bad Salzuflen und das Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium aus Maxdorf freuen. Wir sind gespannt auf euch im Bundesfinale.
Beide Teams hatten sich in ihren Regionalfinalen stark präsentiert, was uns sehr beeindruckt hat. Das Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium aus Bad Salzuflen überzeugte uns mit ihrem Beitrag zum Klimaschutz und dem Versuch, den Zertifkatehandel für CO2-Emissionen in Europa neu zu regeln. Unterstützt wurden sie von Herrn Sommer, vom RWI aus Essen zum Thema “Climate change is costly, but so is mitigation: What policies are most cost-effective?“.
Das Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium im Süd-Westen entwickelte ein Konzept, wie immigrierten Frauen der Einstieg in die Arbeitswelt erleichtert werden könnte. Das Thema “Access to the German labour market: How can we strengthen the integration of refugees?” wurde von Frau Dr. Sommerfeld, Frau Gallegos Torres und Herr Berbée vom ZEW aus Mannheim gestellt.
Wir fanden beide Beiträge sehr einfallsreich und werten aus unserer Sicht das eh schon sehr starke Bundesfinale noch weiter auf.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an die beiden Teams,
Euer YES!-Team
Aktuelle Meldungen
Die Wildcard Teams 2020
Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium Maxdorf und Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium Bad Salzufflen als Wildcard Teams im Bundesfinale
The exciting final of the regional finales
In the south-east region, Friedrich-Koenig-Gymnasium from Würzburg and Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium from Ulm prevailed.
South-West region – a close race for the top spots
Winners in the south-west region are Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium from Stuttgart and the European School RheinMain from Bad Vilbel.
There was some action in the West
#3 of 2020! The winners of the regional final West are the Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium from Langenfeld and the Regiomontanus Gymnasium from Hassfurt.
The North has voted
Gymnasium Buckhorn from Hamburg and Immanuel Kant School from Neumünster win the regional final North 2020.
YES! mit dem Meritum-Preis der Deutschen Wirtschaft 2020 ausgezeichnet
YES! erhält Meritum-Förderpreis 2020
Preisverleihung im BMWi
Unsere vier Gewinnerteams präsentierten ihre Ideen in Berlin.
Drei neue Partner ab 2020
Drei weitere neue Partner für 2020: DICE, ECONtribute und CWS an der Uni Hannover
Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium
Bad Salzuflen
Finalist for the region West (Wildcard team)
CLIMATE CHANGE IS COSTLY, BUT SO IS MITIGATION – PHASE X
As we discovered in our research, the European Emission Trading System poses as a great opportunity to fight climate change. However, there are also things to be fixed about it. In the following, we will try to explain to you how the European Emission Trading System works and what ought to be changed.
Since over time the number of outstanding certificates will be decreased, the price for an externality such as carbon dioxide will increase. What you would expect is a gradually rising price in the European Emission Trading System. Even though the system should have become stricter in the different phases, prices are not rising. Journalists call the current system broken or announced it failed. 1
As we identified both problems and opportunities, we came up with a plan to fix the European Emission Trading System. We call it PHASE X.
Since only European factories are bound to the emission trading system, we want to implement a carbon tax system into the European Emission Trading System. Products imported from countries without a carbon pricing plan will be charged with carbon tariffs. Since other countries will try to prevent overpaying, they are also incentivized to create a carbon pricing plan of their own urging a domino effect. Because if we don’t manage to treat all nations the same, the fight against climate change will fail.
Inequality has to be acted upon. When researching, we discovered another issue that states the incoherency of the European Emission Trading System just as much. Since not all sectors are bound to the European Emission Trading System, the price will be not as efficient as it could be. Other sectors get much of their certificates handed out very cheap due to free allocation. In all honesty: It makes no sense to praise market efficiency if you do not treat everyone equally. Therefore we concluded two more demands.
First of all, all sectors have to be covered by the European Emission Trading System. It is just unfair if some sectors get exceptions from what everybody has contributed to.
And second of all, there should not be any free allocation for the same reason. If some sectors get more free certificates than others, markets are not able to determine those places in the economy where it cost the fewest to save upon carbon dioxide.
1 Matthew Sinclair, Tax Payers Alliance, THE EXPENSIVE FAILURE OFTHE EUROPEAN UNION MISSIONS TRADING SCHEME https://www.cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/matt-sinclairs-ets-study-oct-09.pdf
Their YES! topic
Climate change is costly, but so is mitigation: What policies are most cost-effective?
by Stephan Sommer, RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research
According to UN secretary-general António Guterres, climate change is “the most systematic threat to humankind”. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, rising greenhouse gas emissions have led to an increase in global mean temperatures, extreme weather events, and sea level.
Despite several UN conferences on climate change, governments have only tentatively tackled its causes and consequences. However, there is accumulating scientific evidence that rapid and decisive action is required to limit the consequences of climate change.
A call for action is famously put forward by the Fridays-for-Future movement. Triggered by this movement, the German government has recently agreed upon a new climate protection program that contains a multitude of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Specifically, it avails pecuniary measures, such as a carbon tax and subsidies, but also non-pecuniary measures like energy audits and energy standards. The measures directly address the transportation, building, and agricultural sectors. They comprise a mix of penalties and compensations for citizens and companies to incentivize climate-friendly behaviour.
There are at least three potential shortcomings of this program: First, it is debatable whether the measures it contains are sufficient to reduce Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions to accomplish the goals formulated in the Paris Agreement. Second, climate change can only be mitigated if it is tackled globally, which requires moving beyond unilateral action to multinational cooperation. Third, climate protection measures entail costs, which may unduly burden vulnerable segments of society via higher energy bills, requiring an adequate accompanying social policy to address distributional effects.
Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium
Maxdorf
Finalist for the region South-West (Wildcard team)
The Shajara System
The Problem
During the past five years, some 700,000 female refugees have arrived in Germany – mainly from Africa and the Middle East. The German authorities already put in place multiple support programs that are supposed to foster the integration of female refugees. However, burdened with traumatic experiences, incapacitated by gender, education and culture-specific barriers and suffering from discrimination very few women actually sign up for these programs. While a vast majority of these female refugees is highly motivated to work, they face an uphill societal battle and their access to the German labour market is impaired. Their employment rate remains disappointingly low.
The Solution – Shajara (“tree“ in Arabic)
Roots (1)
The Rafiq develops a personal relationship with the female refugees and accompanies them on their integration journey.
Trunk (2)
The Rafiq encourages the female refugees to participate in training programs laying the ground for further integration steps.
Branches (3)
The qualifications acquired during the support programs allow the female refugees to successfully complete internships and vocational training.
Fruit (4)
The Rafiq’s mentoring leads both to labour market integration as well as integration into the broader society.
A Rafiq (“companion“ in Arabic)
- is a woman
- works on an honorary basis (with certain social security protection)
- combines visits to her clientele on their premises with appointments in her office in the local city hall
- keeps a close network with relevant authorities
- gets in-depth information on “all she needs to know” from the dedicated website www.Rafiq-Portal.de, e.g. Rafiq best practices, key contacts
Path Forward
Phase 1: pilot in 67133 Maxdorf in cooperation with a local NGO “NetzwerkHilfe” (https://en.netzwerk-hilfe.net) in the next 12 months
Phase 2: step-by-step rollout of Shajara System across Germany -> growing national network as committed Shajara alumni become new Rafiqs
Their YES! topic
Access to the German labour market: How can we strengthen the integration of refugees?
by Paul Berbée und Katia Gallegos Torres, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research
In recent years, over one million people have come to Germany to seek asylum. It currently looks as if most of them will not return to their countries of origin in the foreseeable future. From an economic point of view, there is much to be said for people who will be living in Germany for a more extended period. They should be integrated into the labour market as quickly and as well as possible: Only if fugitives have jobs do they pay contributions to social security funds. Quite apart from this, a job provides greater personal satisfaction, quick language acquisition and contacts with locals.
Current figures show that although more and more refugees are finding work in Germany, a large number of them still have great difficulty in gaining a permanent foothold in the labour market. At the same time, the German labour market has developed well in recent years, and companies are more concerned about how they can find enough workers in the future. Against this background, it is crucial to understand better which access routes to the labour market for refugees have the best chances of success and what are the biggest obstacles to integration. Based on the experience of recent years, innovative approaches are needed to ensure that the labour market integration of refugees can be successfully managed in the future.
In general:
– Which different actors play a role in the integration of refugees in your city/region? How can they get involved, and what difficulties do they face? What could be improved locally, and how could this be extended to other areas?
More concretely:
– How can companies quickly and easily find out what skills refugees bring with them if no meaningful certificates are available?
– How can refugees (and companies) more easily obtain information about the legal framework and the situation on the labour market?
– How can the language acquisition of fugitives and the acquisition of German school-leaving certificates be promoted?
– How can vocational schools and training companies adapt to refugees who have practical skills but little experience in the German education system?
