Just transition is becoming an increasingly popular concept to address the social consequences of industrial decarbonization, which EU countries have committed to pursue through the European Green Deal. These consequences include increasing redundancies – especially in carbon-intensive firms...

The aim of this working paper is to provide a preliminary assessment of whether the European Green Deal constitutes a suitable policy framework to combine environmental and economic objectives with the pursuit of social fairness, thus ensuring a just transition towards more sustainable economies...

Countries have pledged to stabilize global warming at a 1.5 to 2°C increase. Either target requires reaching net zero emissions before the end of the century, which implies a major transformation of the economic system. This paper reviews the literature on how policymakers can design climate...

The vast majority of firms in Europe are micro firms. Still, we know little about their financing patterns. Our paper aims to close this gap. Based on a large European firm-level data set, we find that micro firms differ in their financing patterns from small and medium-sized companies. Our...

This EIF Working Paper takes a holistic approach to investigate SME financing patterns in Europe by performing a cluster analysis including 12,726 SMEs in 28 European countries. The results reveal that SME financing in Europe is not homogenous but that different financing patterns exist. The...

The European Union has set ambitious targets for emission reduction and the penetration of renewable energy, including the electricity generation sector as one of the major emitters of CO2. After a period of subsidy-driven investments, the costs of renewables decreased strongly making...

This study examines and provides reasons for the stalled implementation of an integrated approach to addressing security, environment and development challenges in Zone 3 of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). Zone 3, which covers the borderlands connecting Uganda,...

Accurate information about electricity generation and consumption is crucial to power system modelling. Several institutions publish such data: for European countries these include the association of system operators ENTSO-E, the EU body Eurostat, and the International Energy Agency; for Germany...