Democracies, climate change, and clean innovation

Dear LinkedIn community,

With the new academic year just around the corner, we welcome everyone back to the university. This newsletter kicks off a semester full of inspiring events, exciting research insights, and enriching publications.

Soon the registration window will open for our event series on Democracies under threat, featuring?Jason Brennan, Hélène Landemore ,? Steven Pinker ,?Wolfgang Sch?uble,?Daniel Ziblatt, and many more. We look forward to a lively exchange with you at one of our events or – apart from this channel – on Instagram or X.

Democracies under threat

How do small democracies manage to survive in a world auf powerful #empires, #nation-states, and big #democracies? This is one key question that Gérard Roland of 美国加州大学伯克利分校 addresses in his UBS Center Public Paper and his related talk at our UBS Center?Podium. It is also a major topic in our upcoming event series, which will address the worrying trend of declining levels of democracy coupled with the rise of populists and autocracies.

Swiss celebrate 175 anniversary

Fitting the theme of our fall event series, ????#Switzerland is celebrating the birth of its democratic #constitution as it is still lived today, 175 years later. In his speech at the UBS Center Podium, former Federal Councillor Kaspar Villiger took a critical look at Switzerland's federalist structure and posed the crucial question: Is #federalism the holy grail of living statesmanship or long-since outdated Kant?nligeist?(i.e., provincial thinking)?

Fostering clean innovation

Is it possible to induce clean #innovation? How do we design policies?for #green innovation? In his research, UBS Foundation Professor David Hemous of UZH Department of Economics addresses these questions using both an empirical and theoretical approach. His message is crystal clear:

"Since innovation responds a lot to market forces, we should not just wait for innovation to come – instead, we should make sure that it arrives as soon as possible."

The economics of climate change

In our recent edition of our Nobel Opinions publication series, The Nobel Prize laureate Wiliam Nordhaus of 耶鲁大学 explains, why we will not reach the 2-degree target even if the economy were to be rapidly reoriented. Nordhaus’ pioneering work on climate economy models greatly advanced understanding of the complex interactions between #climatechange and human economic activities.?

We look forward to staying in touch with you and hope to see you very soon at one of our events.

Sincere regards,

Ernst Fehr (Director) and Joachim Voth (Scientific Director)

#EconomicsForSociety?#UZH?#shareUBS?University of Zurich?UBS?UZH Department of Economics?UZH Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics