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How well does a course syllabus keep up with the latest research, and how much does it matter that it does? A new paper estimates the education-innovation gap. Learn more about this research and download the free discussion paper: Biasi, B and Ma, S. 2022. 'The Education-Innovation Gap'. CEPR

A major gap in the economic statistics of governments around the world is the lack of timely information on the distribution of income. While detailed macroeconomic data—ranging from quarterly national accounts to high-frequency labour market statistics—are published almost in real time, they are not disaggregated by income level. We know how GDP evolves quarterly, but we do not know which social groups benefit from this growth, or which are most affected by economic crises as they unfold.

How much income do ‘the rich’ receive? From what activities is it derived? And how much tax do they pay? These questions are central to debates around inequality and the appropriate policy solutions. In a July 2021 survey, 58% of Britons “worried” that “the top 1% of earners have more money than the other 99% of people”, and 42% agreed with the statement “the rich should not be able to continue to get richer – it concerns me” (Garrett and Day 2021).

Consistent with the recent increase in consumer price inflation and in light of persistent or even intensifying supply shortages, the ECB’s inflation projections have been revised upwards twice since December 2021. In particular, the current-year outlook for 2022 was raised substantially from 1.7% to 3.2% in December 2021, to 5.1% in March 2022, and then to 6.8% in June 2022.

With the rising interest in ‘corporate social responsibility’ principles, a broad set of ‘environmental, social, and governance’ (ESG) variables have been proposed as metrics to gauge corporate social responsibility efforts. Recent survey evidence suggests that the proportion of global firms that include ESG metrics in their executive compensation has grown rapidly (Gosling et al. 2021). In a recent paper (Cohen et al.

Recent electoral outcomes such as the election of Donald Trump in 2016 or the Brexit vote that same year surprised many of us. Many viewed these outcomes as ‘wrong’ in the sense that information was not aggregated correctly. In particular, factually incorrect beliefs about many aspects of these elections persisted and determined these aggregate choices.

The role of venture capital and governments in clean energy: Lessons from the first cleantech bubble Matthias van den Heuvel, David Popp Large investments in low-carbon technologies are needed to limit global warming. This column uses data on US start-ups over the past 20 years to analyse how venture capital in clean technologies can address the funding gap. It argues that unsuccessful nationwide US climate policy has dampened demand for clean energy technologies in the past.

The Russia-Ukraine war, European financial integration, and crises Philipp Hartmann, David Molitor, Annachiara Tanzarella, Bruun de Jong Russia’s invasion of Ukraine added another one to a series of crises affecting Europe over the last decade and a half.

Opposition to a carbon tax was at the root of the gilets jaunes protests in France. Did the protestors think the tax wouldn’t work, or that it wasn’t fair, or that they would personally lose out? Adrien Fabre talks to Tim Phillips about the link between tax and trust in government.

Editors' note: This column is part of the Vox debate on the economic consequences of war. Estimation of the impact of the war in Ukraine is hampered by availability of data and the evolving situation on the ground (Constantinescu et al. 2022). According to the latest forecasts by the IMF (2022), the Ukrainian economy is expected to shrink by over 35% in 2022. Given high uncertainty, the recovery path could be prolonged (Blinov and Djankov 2022).