A recent focus of my research has been on behavioural aspects of climate economics. On this page you will find information on various projects on this theme. Financial support from the Leverhulme Trust for some of this work is gratefully acknowledged. 

Publications: 

• Social Influence and Carbon Dioxide Mitigation (joint with J.V. Ganguli), Journal of Public Economics 253 (2026), 105558.

Abstract: We investigate the potential of social influence to increase people’s willingness to mitigate their carbon impact. In a large-scale online experiment consisting of two waves of data collection participants are given the choice to spend any share of a 10 GBP endowment on mitigation. If a wave-1 participant is told that their (anonymized) choice will be observed by a wave-2 participant before that participant makes their choice, then the wave-1 participant’s willingness to mitigate (WTM) increases by about . This is not the case if their choice is observed by the wave-2 participant after that participant has already made their choice, which demonstrates that it is indeed the possibility of influence and not only observability that matters. Increasing influence at the extensive margin, i.e. increasing the number of wave-2 participants observing the choice, does not increase WTM. We also elicit beliefs and find that most participants overestimate how much influence they have. 

• Demand For Green Skills in an Evolving Landscape (joint with E. Arenas-Arroyo, J. Fabian, B. Schmidtpeter and M. Serafinelli), RF working paper 2025.

Abstract: How does firms’ skill demand change as the business landscape evolves? We present evidence from the green transition by analyzing how hurricanes impact demand for green skills. These disasters signal the risks of not acting on environmental issues. Using data from U.S. online job postings (2010–2019) and hurricane paths, we create a new measure of green job postings. Firms in areas affected by hurricanes are 6.4% more likely to post jobs that require green skills after the event, particularly those serving local markets.

• Collective Evidence on Behavioural Interventions Targeting Carbon Pricing Support: A Many Design Approach with 55 studies (joint with A. Holzknecht and many others), working paper 2025.

Abstract: Global society needs to reduce carbon emissions quickly to limit the damages caused by climate change. Most economists agree that a carbon price is an effective and cost-efficient policy to mitigate emissions, yet low public acceptance and limited political support remain major barriers to its widespread implementation. This crowd-sourced many-designs project reports results from 55 behavioral interventions on real-world support for carbon pricing, independently developed by international research teams randomly selected from an initial pool of 135 applications. By implementing all interventions simultaneously with almost 20,000 U.S. residents, this pre-registered study ensures comparability of results, accelerates scientific knowledge generation, and reduces risks of scientific malpractices such as p-hacking, selective reporting, and HARKing. Results show very small (Cohen’s d from 0.04 to 0.07) and statistically significant positive effects of behavioral interventions on real-world support, stated support, and willingness to endorse a carbon price that internalizes social costs of $120 per ton of CO2 emissions. This entails an increase in support for carbon pricing across measures of around two percentage points. We find low between-study heterogeneity (τ from 0.07 to 0.12), indicating that behavioral interventions in this domain are similarly effective. Lastly, we identify strong overconfidence among research teams regarding the expected effects of their interventions and those of others, highlighting the need to recalibrate expectations.

• Collective Action under Escalating Dynamic Risk (joint with D. R. Kurian and D. van Dolder), coming soon.