Economy & Finance

The World Bank recently started advising governments to assume the bulk of the risk in public-private partnerships, so as to attract more private-sector players. But in addition to introducing an unacceptable moral hazard, this guidance is creating a possible doomsday scenario for debt-saddled developing countries around the world.

A new report exposing how public private partnerships (PPPs) across the globe have drained the public purse, and failed to deliver in the public interest, was launched at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank in Bali. The report entitled “History RePPPeated: How public private partnerships are failing” compiles no less than 10 case studies, showing how and why each PPP project failed to provide value-for-money, transparency and/or humane infrastructure projects.

Rather than allowing itself to be dragged into Donald Trump’s destructive trade games, the European Union should turn them on their head, by introducing a CO2 levy, including border adjustment. Such a response would help protect the environment and boost the EU's own international clout.

Our economy is obsessed with productivity and growth. How can we transform it into one built around a broader sense of prosperity? One that makes our lives worthwhile instead of destroying our planet?

Corporate lobby groups have created a broad network of influence channels around the G20, with the Business20 (B20) at its core. At the G20 Sherpa meeting in Frankfurt on 23-24 March the B20 presents its policy recommendations to the governments. It is time to counterbalance the corporate influence in the G20.

Ralf Fuecks on Green Growth, Smart Growth – A New Approach to Economics, Environment & Innovation at the 37th Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Lecture in Ahmedabad, October 7th, 2015.

Green Economy sets out to rectify the failure of classical economics witnessed with regard to climate change and biodiversity loss by assigning a monetary value to nature and by integrating ecosystem services into the market system.

“Business as usual” is not a realistic option, as even the international mainstream of the World Bank, UNEP and OECD acknowledge, an admission which has in turn boosted the Green Economy’s career prospects.

Green Economy is a source of both hope and controversy. For some, it points the way out of permanent environmental and economic crises and promises to reconcile – a long cherished Utopia – ecology and economics. It fosters the hope that we can hang on to our current high standard of material prosperity.

Even within the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the various concepts of a sustainable, environmentally friendly and participatory economy are the subject of intense debate. A introduction on the background of this book by the foundations presidents Barbara Unmüßig and Ralf Fücks.