Political Economy and Sustainable Development

Our research team develops theories that combine economic knowledge with an interdisciplinary perspective, and tests them rigorously using modern quasi-experimental and experimental econometric methods. We rely on a variety of data sources that extend beyond classical economic indicators and include spatial, historical or text data. Two key current projects evolve around the role of narratives in enabling or preventing transformative change and around the challenge of sustainable and peaceful resource production. To do so, we strongly rely on machine learning techniques that we apply both to natural language processing as well as to the analysis of spatial images like satellite data.

​In addition, two interdisciplinary projects address sustainable agriculture and carbon compensation markets and schemes. For those projects, we interact with researchers from other disciplines, as well as external stakeholders from the governmental, NGO and corporate sectors.