Germany should consider raising taxes on the wealthiest people to fund its €200bn plan to cap gas and electricity prices, a group of leading economic advisers to the government recommended on Wednesday.
Ulrike Malmendier, one of the five members of Germany’s council of economic experts, said that because the country cannot target its energy support package only at the most needy, it should also “look at the more uncomfortable side” of how to fund it.
“These measures are not super well-targeted because we can’t send cheques to certain households and not others,” said Malmendier, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley who joined the council in September, in an interview. “So we could counterbalance this by doing something on where the money comes from.”