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In considering their impact on climate change, individuals naturally think about consumption. In this video, HENDRIK HAKENES argues that people need to give equal weight to their investments. Hakenes constructs a mathematical model which allows him to explore the effectiveness of different decisions around consumption and investment. Though conventional wisdom suggests that reducing consumption takes priority, the research finds that investment is just as important. Hakenes work helps people to understand how they can more effectively reduce their carbon footprint by paying more attention to investments that they may not have consciously undertaken, via pension funds and insurance for example.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB101029

Researcher

Hendrik Hakenes is Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods and Professor of Finance, at the Friederich-Willhelms University, Bonn (Germany). Hakenes’ research revolves around industrial economics, banking and finance, and risk management.

His research amounts to a model that compares different systems of banking and financing social welfare. Hakenes proposes that those development banks, which are not allowed to compete with the private banking sector, are the most efficient way to provide state aid.

Institution

University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn)

Bonn is one of the large universities in Germany, with around 36,000 students, 550 professors, 6,500 other staff staff. It offers a wide disciplinary spectrum comprising some 200 different degree programmes, from Agricultural Science to Tibetan Studies. This diversity is what characterizes Bonn as a full-range university with a strong international orientation. In many international university rankings Bonn is placed among the 100 best universities in the world.Its academic and research profile features internationally renowned specializations in the fields of Mathematics, Physics/Astronomy, Economics, Chemistry, Pharma Research, Biosciences, Genetic Medicine, Neurosciences and Philosophy/Ethics. Other disciplines, such as Geography and Law, are of outstanding importance within the German research scene. The Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn is rooted in a long tradition going back almost 200 years. It was founded in 1818 by Friedrich-Wilhelm III, the Prussian king whose name it bears. Imbued with the spirit of Wilhelm von Humboldt, the university quickly joined the circle of Germany's most distinguished universities and became a major pole of attraction for leading scholars as well as students.The list of famous professors ranges from the astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander (1799-1875), through the chemist August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829–1896) and political economist Josef Schumpeter (1883–1950) to the philologist Ernst Robert Curtius (1886–1956) and the theologists Karl Barth (1886–1968) and Joseph Ratzinger (born 1927), now Pope Benedict XVI. Bonn's best-known students include Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Konrad Adenauer. The university is proud of a long list of award-winning scientists and scholars, with about twenty Leibniz Prize winners and around thirty ERC grantees. In the last three decades two professors have received the Nobel Prize: Wolfgang Paul (for Physics, 1989) and Reinhard Selten (for Economics, 1994). (Source: University of Bonn)
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The Collaborative Research Center (CRC) TR 224 – EPoS

The Collaborative Research Center (CRC) TR 224 – EPoS is a cooperation between the University of Bonn and the University of Mannheim. Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), it aims to analyze and provide policy proposals that address three key societal challenges: how to promote equality of opportunity; how to regulate markets in light of the internationalization and digitalization of economic activity; and how to safeguard the stability of the financial system.

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Original publication

Responsible investment and responsible consumption

Hakenes Hendrik and Schliephake Eva
Published in 2021

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Beyond