LOGO

Quarterly Journal of Labor and Economic Research Vol. 3, Issue 1 (2026)

Climate Change and the Insurance Industry: How Resilient Are Markets, How Constructive Is Policy?

Edited by Waltraud Schelkle (Waltraud.Schelkle@eui.eu) and Mechthild Schrooten (mechthild.schrooten@hs-bremen.de)

Climate policy as well as climate change with its increasing risk of extreme events are of considerable importance to the insurance industry. This applies at both the national and international level. We also must assume that the frequency of extreme events will shift. The insurance industry can therefore hardly apply existing risk assessment models. Risk modelling itself becomes a risk. Reinsurance companies face significant challenges. At the same time, climate policy, as well as the regulation of the insurance business, start to interfere with core business. Insurance companies are now offering "green" products. Legal requirements for insuring certain risks give rise to new products. The economic consequences of climate change and climate policy for the entire insurance industry are hard to predict.

Government climate policy can try to reduce risks through reinsurance arrangements. However, reinsurance also creates the expectation that all excessive losses will be compensated in the event of a disaster, which can lead to notorious incentive problems and underinsurance on the part of primary insurers as well as households and companies. Are there ways to distribute liabilities fairly among all parties involved? How can the public sector create a second safety net for residual catastrophic risks while simultaneously avoiding being accused of failing to take sufficient precautions or providing insufficient assistance in an emergency? Can the European Union play a constructive role in this? Are there international experiences that Europe could draw on?

Against this background, issue 1/2026 of the IAW's Quarterly Journal of Labor and Economic Research aims to analyze the connections between climate change and the insurance industry in as many facets as possible.

Articles, for example, on the following topics:

• Relationship between climate policy and the insurance industry
• Regulation of compulsory insurance against political resistance
• Political and economic limits of reinsurance
• New insurance models for climate risks
• Challenges of risk assessment and possible solutions
• International comparisons

are welcome. Contributions can be written in English or German.

The editors responsible for this issue of the IAW's Quarterly Journal of Labor and Economic Research are: Prof. Dr. Waltraud Schelkle (Waltraud.Schelkle@eui.eu) and Prof. Dr. Mechthild Schrooten (mechthild.schrooten@hs-bremen.de).

Please send your abstract to Waltraud Schelkle (Waltraud.Schelkle@eui.eu) and (mechthild.schrooten@hs-bremen.de) by July 31, 2025. We will follow up and contact you. A first draft of your paper should be submitted by 30th October. We plan to hold an online conference for presentation and feedback on the invited contributions in November 2025. The complete paper should be submitted by 15th January, 2026. This will be followed by a peer review and revision process that has at most two stages. Please submit your drafts in Word format. Images must be sent as separate files and in reproducible quality.

About the Quarterly Journal of Labor and Economic Research (VAW)

The Quarterly Journal of Labor and Economic Research (VAW) addresses current, important topics in economic policy and labor market developments and examines them from an applied scientific perspective. Committed to this guiding principle, VAW bundles application-oriented research in a thematic issue on current labor and economic policy problems as well as on key economic policy issues of the future. German-speaking and international researchers are welcome. In addition to its application and practice orientation, the journal is also committed to the goals of plurality, knowledge transfer, and relevance. Following in the tradition of the earlier Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, the Quarterly Journal of Labor and Economic Research (VAW) aims to provide guidance on complex economic policy issues. Labor-related topics such as labor demand, training and continuing education, and specific aspects of human resources policy are examined, as are financial and transformation issues. The goal remains to continue to explore new perspectives and practical solutions in these areas.

Thanks to funding from the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, VAW will be published in Diamond Open Access format starting in 2025. This means that authors incur no publication costs, and the articles are freely available to readers.

 

 

 

 

  

A special event celebrating the launch of Work-Net International, a groundbreaking global network dedicated to advancing research on work and employment, took place on Tuesday, 21 January 2025.

The event has been part of the Work Equalities Institute's two-day Sixth Fairness at Work conference, hosted by the Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) at The University of Manchester.

The launch event has welcome 26 of Work-Net International's 31 founding members to The University of Manchester - among them also the director of the Institute of Labour and Economy, Prof. Dr. Irene Dingeldey. Work-net is  bringing together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore the network's potential to influence international policy and academic discourse on critical issues related to work and employment.

 

https://www.wei.manchester.ac.uk/research/networks/work-net-international/

  

Entwicklungslinien des Wissenschaftstransfers in der BMBF- geförderten Arbeitsforschung von 1990-2020

This article presents the results of a document analysis of the BMBF funding programs for labour research between 1990 and 2020. In particular, it examines how the BMBF conceptualises the transfer of knowledge in its funding programmes for labour research, which instruments for successful knowledge transfer have been introduced and modified over time and what role transdisciplinary cooperation between science and practice plays in this. The analysis provides interesting insights into (changing) understandings of transdisciplinary knowledge transfer, how it works and the quality and corresponding success criteria cited by the BMBF. The findings are summarised and discussed in eight points. Particular attention is paid to the scientific connectivity of the transdisciplinary research mode in BMBF-funded labour research.

Sustainability vision for 2035 of the project: "We make transition!"

We-make-transition.pdf (2.39 MB)

Geopolitical risks : What changes for Germany and Europe?

ED: Thomas Gehrig (University of Vienna), Lukas Menkhoff (HU Berlin), Doris Neuberger (University of Rostock), Dorothea Schäfer (iaw University of Bremen)

The crises of the 21st century have exposed significant weaknesses in globalized free trade. Both the Corona pandemic and the economic reactions to Russia's invasion of the Ukraine have shown the extreme dependence of Western industrial nations on a few large producers with significant market power. On the one hand, this affects high-tech goods based on computer chips, solar cells, wind turbines and pharmaceutical products, but on the other hand also raw materials, energy and bulk goods such as health and safety masks. In many places, blindly trusting in the functioning of the market, security of supply in the event of a crisis was carelessly overlooked.

Against this background, the question arises about the specific risks to the security of supply chains and the reasons why these are insufficiently insured in a globalized world. Who is affected and how will existing inequalities between population groups or regions be increased? What political conclusions can be drawn from the findings, and are deglobalization or friend-shoring indeed part of the correct answer?

How do the capital markets react to geopolitical risks – do they fulfill an insurance function or do they increase instabilities? What changes in the markets for international capital movements due to the new geopolitical risks are necessary? Are private, capital market-based risk sharing instruments more efficient than public ones? To what extent should the state intervene through trade restrictions, subsidies or transfers?

This issue addresses a variety of individual topics relating to the general topic of “geopolitical risks”. Of particular interest is the handling of geopolitical risks that arise in connection with: 

• Supply chains in the shadow of uncertainty
  • renewable energies: solar panels, wind turbines
  • Chip production
  • Pharmaceutical industry
  • Resources: rare earths and other raw materials
• Production networks and spillovers
• Geopolitical risks
  • Political risks and sanctions
  • Trade risks and subsidy competition
    • Trade with autocratic countries
    • Trade without a legal system
    • Multi-sourcing
  • Geopolitical risks and financial markets
    • Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
    • Private financial flows: Are there new risk premiums?
    • Is the synchronization of returns decreasing again?
    • Role of development financing
    • Remittances/Migration: Changes caused by geopolitical tensions
    • Role of foreign exchange market interventions
    • Government debt, especially in emerging countries, Africa
    • Role of the IMF (generally international financial institutions)
    • Is system stability influenced?
    • Payment transactions, retention of Russian funds,
    • Importance of competing institutions (e.g. BRICs), future of the Belt and Road Initiative

 

Authors who would like to submit a contribution (in German or English language) should send a short outline of the planned contribution (about 1/3-1/2 page) as soon as possible, but no later than June 15, 2024 to the Editors Thomas Gehrig (thomas.gehrig@univie.ac.at), Lukas Menkhoff (lmenkhoff@diw.de), Doris Neuberger (doris.neuberger@uni-rostock.de) and Dorothea Schäfer (vaw@uni-bremen.de). Feedback will be given within 10 days. The finished contributions, which should not exceed 40,000 characters in length, must be submitted in the first version by November 1, 2024. This is followed by a one- or two-stage peer review and revision process. Please note that manuscripts can only be submitted in Word format. We require images as separate files and in reproducible quality. The “Geopolitical Risks” issue of the Quarterly Journal of Labour and Economic Research will be published in May 2025.

Link Duncker & Humblot

We make transition! partners and change agents from six Baltic Sea region countries met in Gdynia, Poland for two intensive days (14-15 February 2024). The meeting was full of sharing and inspiring!

Joint vision and recommendations

More than 50 meeting participants worked in small groups with tasks such as:
– imagine a life of a person in the future that is sustainable
– what the local authorities should do in order to reach a future where civil society actors are empowered to enhance ecological and social sustainability?

The results of group works are used to elaborate the “joint vision of sustainable life in the Baltic Sea region and recommendations” to be published later in spring.

First meeting of the project participants in the EU Interreg project "We make transition!

project homepage

Contact:
Dr. rer. pol. Tina Schneider
Domshof 26
28195 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-61701
E-Mail: tina.schneider@uni-bremen.de

Issue No. 32 of iaw Schriftenreihe

This paper examines how the collective bargaining parties of the German metal and electrical industry, Gesamtmetall and IG Metall, portrayed the Corona crisis in the public sphere. The empirical basis consists of press releases, guest contributions by the chairpersons and press interviews. The framing perspective adopted by this study promises to shed light on how the collective bargaining parties assess the social partnership's ability to act and what priorities they set. Social partnership is also coming under increasing pressure in the core areas of the German economic model. This is also reflected in our analysis: While at first glance there is a coalition of interests in the description of the crisis and the call for state aid to support the economy and safeguard employees, this is characterized by a strong imbalance. It is not just a matter of purely strategic cooperation on specific issues.
The employer-side also insists on wage restraint and leaves unanswered union calls for a more farreaching joint assumption of responsibility. Particularly against the backdrop of further effects of the pandemic on the labor market, this weakens the unions' bargaining power and puts further pressure on the institutional pattern of social partnership.

Hopp, Marvin; Kiess, Johannes; Menz, Wolfgang; Seeliger, Martin, (2022): „Social Partnership Revival“ The Framing of the Covid-19-Crisis in the German metal sector, Erschienen in: Schriftenreihe Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft Bd. 32 // Download PDF

Together with Prof. Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky (LMU Munich), our researcher Martin Seeliger interviewed Prof. Judith Butler (UC Berkeley) about the structural change of the public sphere.

The interview will be published at the end of the year in a special issue of Theory, Culture & Society, co-edited by Sebastian Sevignani and Martin Seeliger. This will include texts by Douglas Kellner, Donatella Della Porta, Nancy Fraser, and Jürgen Habermas, among others.

Link to the interview

Contact:
PD Dr. Martin Seeliger
Domshof 26
28195 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-61711
E-Mail: seeliger@uni-bremen.de

We welcome PD Dr. Martin Seeliger