EconPol Forum

On November 5 of this year, American voters will have a choice between former Republican President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who was named the Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden’s decision not to run for the presidency again. A record number of countries are holding elections this year, but this US presidential election is likely to be one of the most important due to the country’s influence on the global stage. Although the world is currently suffering from wars, rising tensions between major powers, and other geopolitical risks, most of these have not radically affected the outlook for economies and markets in the short term. However, many fear that this could change if the US returns to an aggressive “America First” stance. On the other hand, Harris is seen as the candidate of political continuity who will maintain many of Biden’s economic and foreign policy measures.

The banking turmoil of 2023 had only a limited impact on banks in the Eurozone and the EU. Nevertheless, important lessons can be learned from this crisis: effective regulation and supervision is a moving target that must adapt to changing circumstances and banks' business models.

A quarter of employees in Germany regularly work from home (WFH), which is often a mixture of office and remote working. The office market in this country is undergoing a stress test and the steady shift to WFH will significantly reduce demand for office space in the long term.

Companies in the EU spend much less on R&D than their competitors in the US and focus their innovation activities on mid-tech rather than high-tech sectors (IT hard-ware, software, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals). Reforms of EU innovation policy are necessary to avoid the “mid-tech trap,” i.e., the traditional dominance of the same companies, especially from the automotive sector.

Both Germany and the US are among the most innovative and entrepreneurially ac-tive countries in the world. Nevertheless, they face different challenges: the strengthening of incremental innovative entrepreneurship in Germany versus the continuous promotion of radical and disruptive entrepreneurship in the US.