I am senior lecturer (associate professor, Lektor) in economics at Uppsala University in Sweden. My research is focused on environmental and resource economics, behavioral economics, political economics and development.
Please find links below to my research and written work
Recent research
Working paper: Integrated Assessment of Biodiversity and Agriculture, with Johan Gars et al.
Working paper: The Geopolitical Externality of Climate Policy, with Timothe Beaufils et al.
Working paper: "Assessing the impact of oil sanctions on Russia". With Henrik Wachtmeister and Johan Gars.
Recent policy and teaching
Västs oljesanktioner mot Ryssland och deras konsekvenser för Sverige (Report NEPP with Johan Gars and Henrik Wachtmeister)
Kärnkraftssubventionerna är än sämre i det nya ekonomisk- och geopolitiska läget, SvD Debatt, April 2025
Dokument med referenser till olika meningar i artikeln
The Security Dividend of Climate Policy, (Policy brief, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, March-2025, with Beaufils et al.)
Titta på andra modeller för att bygga kärnkraft, SVD debatt Sep-2024
Klimatomställningens fördelningseffekter och hur de kan motverkas (Underlagsrapport Finanspolitiska rådet)
Rysslands skuggflotta med oljetankers: miljörisker och politiska verktyg (12/4 2024, with Henrik Wachtmeister)
Sanctions on Russia: Getting the facts right (Becker et al, 2024)
Slides (download and open with powerpoint!) for teaching convergence and inequality based on rSolow (Spiro, 2025)
Contact
email: daniel.spiro.ec@gmail.com
post: Ekonomikum, Kyrkogårdsgatan 10, Box 513, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
phone: +46 (0)18-471 5125
Links
Journal Articles
“The Dynamics of Revolutions”, Forthcoming European J of Political Econ with Moti Michaeli. Latest version here.
"Winners and losers of a Russian oil-export restriction", Forthcoming Public Choice, with Henrik Wachtmeister and Johan Gars.
"A simple growth model of open economies", Forthcoming Scandinavian J of Econ (previously circulated as "An open-economy Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model in reduced form" ). Here are slides for teaching convergence and inequality.
“Non-confrontational Extremists”, with Daniel Chen and Moti Michaeli, 2023, European Economic Review
"A theory of hypocrisy", with Alice Hallman, 2023, J of Economic Behavior and Organization
"Approximately optimal forest rotation in a non-stationary environment", with Johan Gars (previously circulated as "Should Foresters Forecast?"), 2023, Natural Resource Modeling.
"The effect of European fuel-tax cuts on the oil income of Russia", with Johan Gars and Henrik Wachtmeister, 2022 Nature Energy
Policy brief: "European fuel tax cuts increase Russian oil profits", 2022, Nature Energy
"Optimal epidemic suppression under an ICU constraint", with Laurent Miclo and Jörgen Weibull. 2022 Journal of Mathematical Economics.
"A Simple Model of the Production-Health Trade-off During an Epidemic", with Tommy Andersson, Albin Erlansson and Robert Östling. 2022 Economics Bulletin
"Carbon pricing with planetary boundaries", with Gustav Engström, Johan Gars and others. 2020, Nature communications
"What policies address both the coronaviruscrisis and the climate crisis?" with Gustav Engström, Johan Gars, Niko Jaakkola, Therese Lindahl and Arthur van Benthem. 2020, Environmental and Resource Economics.
“Multigenerational Transmission of Culture”, 2020, Journal of Economic Theory. WP version here.
“Finders Keepers?”, with Niko Jaakkola and Arthur van Benthem. 2019, Journal of Public Economics. Latest version.
“Prescriptive Norms and Social Comparisons”, with Moti Michaeli. 2018, Games.
"Leading the Unwilling: Unilateral Strategies to Prevent Arctic Oil Exploration", with Justin Leroux. Resource and Energy Economics 2018. WP version.
Supplementary calculations: "Note on extraction cost spillovers in the Arctic", Calculations.
"Trade and the Risk of Renewable-Resource Collapse" with Johan Gars. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 2018. WP version.
(earlier version circulated as Uninsurance through trade)
“From Peer Pressure to Biased Norms”, with Moti Michaeli, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2017. WP version.
“Should Developing Countries Constrain Resource-Income Spending? A Quantitative Analysis of Oil Income in Uganda”, with J Hassler, P Krusell, A Shifa, The Energy Journal, 2016.
“Norm Conformity across Societies”, with Moti Michaeli, Journal of Public Economics, 2015. WP version.
“Resource Prices and Planning Horizons”, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2014. WP version
“The Elephant in Hotelling’s room”, with Rob Hart, Energy Policy, 2011.
Working papers
Integrated Assessment of Biodiversity and Agriculture, with Johan Gars, Gustav Engström, Steven Lade.
The Geopolitical Externality of Climate Policy, with Timothe Beaufils et al.
"Assessing the impact of oil sanctions on Russia", R&R Energy Policy, with Henrik Wachtmeister and Johan Gars.
"Likes", with Tuval Danenberg and Zvika Neeman
"When do supermajority rules moderate?", with Anton Arbman Hansing and Mitch Downey
"The Price Cap on Russian Oil: A Quantitative Analysis". With Henrik Wachtmeister and Johan Gars (replaces "Quantity restrictions and price discounts on Russian oil" ).
“Legitimizing Policy”, with Daniel Chen and Moti Michaeli.
Larger projects
The economics of planetary boundaries
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/planetary-boundaries/home?authuser=0
Research question and aim: Which policies would keep humanity within the planet’s safe operating space without hindering progress on the sustainable development goals? This is possibly the most pressing question facing mankind today. To advance on that question the aim of this project is to develop an integrated assessment model to study the two-way interaction between the global economy and the most pressing global environmental issues.
Participants: Daniel Spiro (PI, Uppsala U), Johan Gars (Beijer Inst.), Gustav Engström (Beijer Inst), Arthur van Benthem (U Penn), Lint Barrage (UCSD), Peter Søgaard Jørgensen (Stockholm resilience center), Daniel Moran (NTNU), Sarah Cornell (Stockholm resilience center), Steven Lade (Stockholm resilience center)
Ideological extremism and integration
Research questions: 1)How do people with extreme ideology behave when interacting with mainstream society? Do they distance themselves, conform to or confront mainstream normss? 2) What makes an individual extremize, that is adopt an extreme ideology in beliefs and actions? 3) What factors makes an extreme individual moderate her beliefs and actions?
Funding: Handelsbankens forskningsstiftelser
Participants: Daniel Spiro (PI, Uppsala U), Moti Michaeli (Haifa U), Daniel Chen (Toulouse), Yikai Wang (U of Essex), Alice Hallman (Uppsala U).
Books and pedagogical material
Sometimes I write longer threads on twitter or elsewhere trying to summarize research or explain a particular topic, I link to some of these here:
Slides (download and open with powerpoint!) for teaching convergence and inequality based on rSolow (Spiro, 2021)
Ville globale utslipp reduseres hvis Norge sluttet å lete etter olje? (video)
References for "Would global emissions decrease if Norway stopped searching for oil?"
"Nationalekonomi för miljöintresserade", editor Ulrika Stavlöt. Chapter on Non-renewable resources. In Swedish.
"Exhaustible resources", text for master course in Resource Economics at U of Oslo.
Policy reports and writing
Here is policy analysis and discussion (and sometimes opinion). Some of it is in the form reports and some in the form of threads:
The Security Dividend of Climate Policy, (Policy brief, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, March-2025, with Beaufils et al.)
Titta på andra modeller för att bygga kärnkraft, SVD debatt Sep-2024
Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers: Environmental risks and policy options (June 2024. with Henrik Wachtmeister)
Klimatomställningens fördelningseffekter och hur de kan motverkas (Underlagsrapport Finanspolitiska rådet)
Rysslands skuggflotta med oljetankers: miljörisker och politiska verktyg (with Henrik Wachtmeister)
Sanctions on Russia: Getting the facts right (Becker et al, 2024)
Om Sveriges undantag från EUs minimiskatt på energi (twitter)
"Should we close the schools?", comment.
"Idéer och ramverk for effektiv testning", with Hannes Malmberg and Tommy Andersson
"The economic case for large-scale testing for Covid-19", with Tommy Andersson, Erik Lindqvist, Erik Grönqvist, Robert Östling.
“Förtydliganden och räkneexempel av ekonomiska värdet med testning”, with Tommy Andersson, Erik Lindqvist, Erik Grönqvist, Robert Östling.
“Idea: An international COVID-19 vaccine research fund”, Short Note.
“Six Policy Ideas for Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic”, White paper with Tommy Andersson, Erik Lindqvist, Erik Grönqvist, Hannes Malmberg, Robert Östling.
“Utvinning för allmän vinning: en ESO-rapport om svenska mineralinkomster”, with Jesper Roine. In Swedish for the Expert Group on Public Economics, English title "Exploration for the common good: a report on swedish mineral income".
Media contributions and appearances
ENERGY AND CONFLICTSkuggtankers och oljeutsläpp April 2024: TV 4 Här och Här samt VKElpriser och bränslepriser Augusti 2023, SROljesanktioner Februari 2023 TV4https://www.dn.se/sverige/forskare-sveriges-undantag-fran-bransleskatt-kan-ge-ryska-miljonvinster/
https://www.etc.se/klimat-miljo/saenkt-braensleskatt-gynnar-putins-krigskassa
https://www.extrakt.se/sankt-bransleskatt-gynnar-ryssland/
https://www.forskning.se/2022/09/16/sankta-bensinskatter-ger-ryssland-klirr-i-kassan/
https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/kan-hojd-skatt-stoppa-putin
"Putin tjänar miljarder på EU:s sänkta bränsleskatter", Dagens Nyheter, 23 April 2022 ("Putin makes billions on the EU's fuel-tax cuts")https://omniekonomi.se/ekonom-sagar-onodig-atgard-kommer-trycka-upp-elpriserna/a/Kz19we"Rea på olja", panel discussion on the oil-price fall. Swedish Television, 10 February 2015 (Title: A sale on oil).https://www.svd.se/krisatgarderna-som-gynnar-jobb-och-klimat
https://www.svd.se/ambitionen-bor-vara-langt-over-100000-test
Beräkningar: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12mjVVPsaEHvqLxpsN3JxIZyNzR1XQuqV/view
https://www.svd.se/kraftigt-utbyggd-testning-kan-lona-sig
https://www.tv4play.se/program/nyheterna/12560137
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/tegnell-mer-testning-skulle-skydda-aldre-battre
https://www.svd.se/coronatesta-sverige
https://www.svd.se/nationalekonomer-vi-behover-spara-smittan
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/forskare-kraver-masstestning-for-ekonomins-skull