Auf die Shortlist für die Vergabe des Wirtschaftspublizistik-Preises der Hans-und-Traute-Matthöfer-Stiftung schafften es 2021 außerdem:

• Maja Göpel, Unsere Welt Neu Denken, Ullstein Verlag, 02/2020
• Andreas Reckwitz, Das Ende der Illusionen, Edition Suhrkamp, 10/2019
• Robert J. Shiller, Narrative Wirtschaft, Plassen Verlag, 03/2020

Hans Matthöfer Prize for Economic Publishing 2021

The 2021 Prize is being awarded to Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman for their book "The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay" and Philipp Staab for his book "Digital Capitalism - Market and Hegemony in the Economy of Superabundance".

The grounds for the jury's decision

Drawing on a brilliant historical analysis of US distribution policy, two renowned researchers on inequality, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, demonstrate how disparities in income and wealth have widened on such a dramatic scale - and why this is the result of deliberate policy. In their analysis, they break away from the familiar narrative that there is no alternative to inequality and low taxation of great wealth. In the US, for example, the wealthiest strata of the population were taxed at rates of around 90 per cent for a long period of time. The authors also show that tax avoidance strategies of multinational enterprises cannot be justified, nor are they unalterable. The book does not provide a carte blanche for any and all types of taxation, but rather a useful template with which to move the debate beyond stubborn, long-standing policy taboos to explore what contribution taxation can make to reversing growing disparities and cleavages in society.

Philipp Staab's analysis of strategies pursued by the major players in the Internet economy provides groundbreaking insight to aid in our understanding of digital capitalism. In this sector, enterprises act not only as competitors in markets - they are themselves these markets, in which they then simultaneously act as the sole actors shaping the conditions governing supply and demand. This means that economic policy directed at the Internet needs to be be radically rethought. The inexorable advance of Internet companies to triumph in the course of the pandemic underscores the tremendous relevance of the book.

Award ceremony  on 3 May 2021: https://www.fes.de/en/day-of-progressive-economic-policy