Active ownership: the keys of success
Exit vs. voice – this is the general choice that responsible shareholders face when invested in a company that behaves in a way that does not align with their values. The first option is to dissociate themselves and divest. The second is to engage in dialogue to initiate positive change. The latter strategy refers to […]
Active ownership: for what impact?
Exit vs. voice – this is the general choice that responsible shareholders face when invested in a company that behaves in a way that does not align with their values. The first option is to dissociate themselves and divest. The second is to engage in dialogue to initiate positive change. The latter strategy refers to […]
Active ownership: by whom and how?
Exit vs. voice – this is the general choice that responsible shareholders face when invested in a company that isn’t behaving in a way that aligns with their values. The first option is to dissociate themselves and divest. The second is to engage in dialogue to initiate positive change. The latter strategy refers to active […]
Swiss Negative Emissions Fund – paying for Net Zero
In this paper, we propose setting up a fund to finance the removal of all Swiss territorial GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions from 2030. The fund will accelerate decarbonization and help reach annual net zero emissions around 2040, and then progressively remove all past emissions emitted from 2030. The fund will be entirely funded by emitters, […]
Threats to Nitrogen Fertilizer, Opportunities to Cultivate Sustainable Practices?
A chain of reactions is threatening the world’s food supply. Today, the price of the most widely used fertilizer (nitrogen fertilizer) is surging, with potentially devastating effects on global crop yields.
Building Benchmarks Portfolios with Decreasing Carbon Footprints
In this paper, the authors build portfolios with decreasing carbon footprint, which passive investors can use as new Paris-consistent (PC) benchmarks and have the same risk- adjusted returns as business as usual (BAU) benchmarks. As the distribution of firms’ carbon intensity is very skewed, excluding a small fraction of highly polluting firms can massively reduce […]
Carbon removal, net zero, and implications for Switzerland
Carbon removal, including carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and negative emission technologies (NET), is an important but small part of climate action, unlikely to scale beyond 5-10% percent of current emissions, in the 2-3 critical decades we have to stabilize our climate and stop biodiversity loss. We propose a typology of climate action, and […]
Divesting: for what impact?
Sustainable finance is experiencing a period of spectacular growth and the role of finance is being questioned in an unprecedented manner. Among the environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies used by responsible investors, the simplest, and undoubtedly the most popular, is that of excluding bad ESG performers – also referred to as divesting or exclusion. […]
Climate-Related Disasters and the Death Toll
With climate change accelerating, the frequency of climate disasters is expected to increase in the decades to come. There is ongoing debate as to how different climatic regions will be affected by such an acceleration. In this paper, we describe a model for predicting the frequency of climate disasters and the severity of the resulting […]
The future of globalization: Building resilient and sustainable supply chains
New report by the Enterprise for Society Center analyzes the resilience and sustainability challenge of globalization.
Greening the Swiss National Bank’s portfolio
The integration of environmental preferences and the practice of sustainable and responsible investing are widely discussed topics among investment professionals, academics, and policy makers. Survey results confirm that more and more institutional investors commit to the integration of principles of responsible investment in their investment process. Central banks worldwide actively take part in the policy […]
Bending the Line: Moving Towards a Circular Economy
The world is today operating in a linear economy that extracts natural resources, produces energy or goods which are disposed in the form of pollution or waste. This “take, make, waste” system has generated prosperity and wealth in many parts of the world, but has also polluted the planet and the atmosphere. The consequences are […]
Introducing an Air Ticket Tax in Switzerland: Estimated Effects on Demand
Air travel is now recognized as the most important driver of anthropogenic climate change of all Swiss economic sectors, ahead of ground transport. Furthermore, It is widely expected that Swiss air travel will return to pre-COVID levels and continue its rise thereafter. We estimate that the planned air ticket tax in the revised CO2 Act would reduce future Swiss air travel demand in the future, by incentivising substitution behaviour away from air travel.
Automation Technologies and the Future of Work:
Policies for Inclusive Growth
There is a growing concern in public discussions that automation could soon make human labor obsolete. This report aims to delineate the state of knowledge on the impact of machines on the future of work and to offer guidance on how to prepare societies for the arrival of intelligent machines.
Saving the world from your couch:
The heterogeneous medium-run benefits of COVID-19 lockdowns on air pollution
E4S researchers and co-authors estimate the medium-run impact of a battery of COVID- 19 related lockdown measures on air quality across 162 countries. They find that domestic and international lockdown measures overall led to a substantial persistent decline in air pollution.
Seeing is Believing:
Toward Interpretable Data Visualization
When we see something we can easily detect patterns, we can spot anomalies, we can verify similarities. That’s why when dealing with data it is particularly important to reach the visualization part as early as possible. It can significantly speed up the identification of data problems but also help to better communicate and illustrate the research findings.
Coronavirus crisis is exacerbating inequality in Switzerland
A recent study published by the KOF (Swiss Economic Institute), and co-financed by E4S and the Federal Office of Public Health shows that inequalities have increased with the Covid-19 health crisis. The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is being felt across all social strata. However, low-income households are suffering particularly as a result of […]
Distant learning increases student inequality
A study just published in the Journal of the European Economic Association analyses the impact of online live streaming of lectures in a public Swiss university before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The results show that students prefer to be in the classroom when this is possible and that following lectures online help students that usually […]
The elea Way – A learning journey towards sustainable impact
IMD’s Professor and E4S member Vanina Farber and Dr. Peter Wuffli, founder of the elea foundation, offer practical advice in their new book on how inclusive capitalism can address absolute poverty. Impact investing has become mainstream. The desire to link investments to social goals is no longer a buzzword for do-gooders, but a daily reality […]
Green Domestic Product: Netting Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Gross Domestic Product
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is rightly criticized for not being an accurate measure of economic value added since it does not account for the environmental damages caused by the underlying economic activity.
Find out more about consumption in Switzerland: Monitoring Consumption in Switzerland
In two short explanatory videos, Prof. Rafael Lalive presents the tool “Monitoring Consumption in Switzerland”
Second wave: Swiss self-employed dealing with the Covid-19 confinement
How has the business situation and the financial and mental health of the self-employed changed since April? A survey conducted by the KOF Institute and the University of Lausanne among self-employed people and business owners in Switzerland analyses the effects of the 2nd wave of Covid-19. This report follows a first study conducted in spring […]
We must shift from a broken economic system to a more inclusive and ecologically sustainable world, say E4S leaders
“The capital in capitalism must not be restricted to physical capital – it must include all that is valued in society”
25 years of VAT! And tomorrow: A Green VAT? The use of VAT as a climate tool
This article examines the extent to which VAT could be used as a tax incentive in the context of the fight against global warming.
The surprise silver lining
What we can learn from professional service teams that managed to perform well during the crisis.
Can the free movement of persons hurt the economy?
Jennifer Hunt and Rafael Lalive reply to questions concerning the impact of immigration on the economy, in the framework of the Swiss vote on the free movement of persons on Sept 27th, 2020.
Monitoring consumption in Switzerland
The project “Monitoring Consumption Switzerland” has used payment data to examine consumer behaviour after the reopening of the shops after the lockdown, and how this is impacted by the Covid-19 crisis.
Will Covid-19 pave the way for more business responsibility?
Will Covid-19 change peoples’ opinions and demands concerning business responsibility? We analyse social perceptions about the Responsible Business Initiative (“multinationales responsables”) initiative before and during the lockdown.
How To Make Digital Proximity Tracing Work: The View from Economics
Digital proximity tracing (DPT) holds great promise as a complement to traditional proximity tracing, mainly because it allows contacts in anonymous crowds to be alerted in addition to known contacts. However, even the best technological solution, when it depends on widespread adoption, needs to contend with the human factor.
Fast and local: how did lockdown policies affect the spread and severity of Covid-19?
How have the responses of governments around the world to this Covid-19 crisis impacted the development of the global pandemic?
How Reskilling Can Soften the Economic Blow of Covid-19
Not all industries suffered of the Covid-19 crisis: the healthcare sector, for instance, saw demand grow, as did schools, in some parts of the world, and online retail.
How to financially support Swiss SMEs?
We propose an attractive way of supporting PME’s that does not rely on recourse to debt
Job search during the COVID-19 lockdown
Job-seekers during the Corona crisis are making significantly less effort to find a new job. In addition to the lack of suitable job offers, fear of infection by jobseekers plays a decisive role, as does the increased need for childcare for mothers.
How valuable is financial flexibility? Evidence from the COVID-19 crisis
The reported publication examines the value of financial flexibility for large, publicly listed companies in the US during the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis.
A “win-win” proposal to improve financial support for SME’s
The Covid crisis has created new liquidity needs for companies due to a partial slowdown or a total shutdown of their activities. The Confederation has provided a solution to this problem by granting bridging loans.
Corona crisis and the self-employed
The Corona crisis also has financial and psychological consequences for the self-employed.
Lockdown release
Lifting the lockdown, yes …. But how? Outline of a strategy combining health and economic factors
Wage Compensation & Corona Loans
Generous wage compensation & corona loans: Why and how the Swiss state should bear most of the economic cost of the corona lockdown
Policy brief: air ticket tax
Introducing an Airline Ticket Tax in Switzerland: Estimated Effects on Demand
Press kit for the launch of E4S
UNIL, IMD and EPFL team up to train managers on sustainability in the digital age