4th SEEK Conference

The ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research is pleased to announce the annual conference of its research programme "Strengthening Efficiency and Competitiveness in the European Knowledge Economies" (SEEK). Entitled "Public Finance and Income Distribution in Europe", the conference will focus on fiscal policy and public debt, income and wealth inequality in Europe, and prospects for a European fiscal union – topics at the heart of the current academic and policy debates. Recommendations to tackle these challenges range from improved fiscal policy rules and crisis resolution mechanisms, to joint liability for government debt or full fiscal and economic union including a fiscal capacity at the European level. At the same time it is important to analyse the implications on welfare and income distribution of these proposed policy measures.

For the scientific sessions of our conference, we seek high-quality academic papers in areas such as:

• EU debt crisis
• Fiscal policy in the EU
• Prospects of an EU fiscal union
• Income and wealth inequality
• Redistributive preferences
• Optimal redistributive taxation
• Financial sector taxation
• Wealth and inheritance taxation
• Fiscal competition and the (erosion of the) welfare state