DG ECFIN Research Fellowships 2020-2021: "Shifting Paradigms: the Quest for New Modes of Sustainable Growth and Convergence"
Our research aims at a continuous monitoring and evaluation of the green content of stimulus packages across the EU. To this end, we will in a first step gather information on the size and structure of the stimulus programmes implemented in the EU member countries. In a second step, we will categorise the measures into "green" policies, which may reduce long-run greenhouse gas emissions, "brown" policies, which may increase long-run net greenhouse gas emissions, and "colourless" ones, which work in neither of these directions. In addition, we will provide an assessment of the long-run multiplier effect (high, medium, or low) for the individual stimulus measures. Although such a rough categorisation of course does not allow a substantial impact evaluation, it will provide a first rough picture concerning the extent of "green" and "brown" content in EU member countries' stimulus packages as well as their expected long-run economic effects. We will carry out this ex ante evaluation based on publicly available information on EU member countries' stimulus packages. In a third step, the resulting quantification of the three categories allows a rough evaluation of the extent to which the economic stimulus packages support long-term structural change and climate goals and the extent to which they create medium to long-term fossil lock-ins on the one hand and long-term economic effects on the other hand.