AfterCorona is a collection of 14 ideas for deep, structural economic-policy change in Europe for the time after Corona. Dezernat Zukunft collaborated with a group of 33 economists and political scientists over the past 10 weeks to identify structural problems caused or highlighted by Covid-19, and to develop policy proposals for addressing them.

The collection includes proposals on financial governance, central banking, taxation, services, state institutions and capacity, and the EU legal framework. Some of the proposals can be implemented immediately, others require and set out a direction for treaty change.

The proposals aim at three overarching goals: democratizing central banking, constructing a more capable state, and building a resilient society. They are carried by the conviction that only a just society can be resilient, sustainable, and democratic over the long run. Taken together, they offer one of the first concrete visions of how fiscal-monetary coordination could be implemented in Europe.

The proposals resulted from four virtual workshops hosted by Dezernat Zukunft in recent weeks and months. Mathis Richtmann, our  managing director, says of the process: “It is enlightening to work with these distinguished scholars and see their thinking in action. It gives me hope to see that we could come up with 14 great proposals in only 10 weeks. They need further elaboration, to be sure, and we  look forward to debating them in the following months.”

A subset of the 14 proposals will be expanded into policy briefs over the next 6-12 months. “We welcome feedback from policy makers, academics, and the wider public and will factor it into the direction of research and the choice of proposals to extend and deepen,” says Max Krahé, co-founder of Dezernat Zukunft. “We hope that the specific yet ambitious nature of these proposals provides grist for public debate.” Krahé adds. 

The proposals and further information on the project are presented on a dedicate website, www.ideasaftercorona.de, the collection of ideas is available here.

The following scholars participated in the collaborative writing process. We thank them all again wholeheartedly:

Andrea Binder, Benjamin Braun, Florence Dafe, Leah Downey, Stefan Eich, Nina Eichacker, Isabelle Ferreras, Daniela Gabor, Jakob Hafele, Philipp Heimberger, Lisa Herzog, Elena Hofferberth, Ewa Karwowski, Max Krahé, Christina Laskaridis, Martyna Linartas, Anne Löscher, Nicholas Mulder, Steffen Murau, Natalya Naqvi, Theresa Neef, Ann Pettifor, Tobias Pforr, Katharina Pistor, Mathis Richtmann, Elham Saeidinezhad, Pola Schneemelcher, Philippa Sigl-Glöckner, Lea Steininger, Jens van ‘t Klooster, Katy Wiese, Lea Ypi