Jeroen van den Bergh

Jeroen van den Bergh

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Social & Behavioural Sciences

ICREA Research Professor at Institute of Environmental Science & Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Honorary Professor of Environmental & Resource Economics in School of Economics & Business and Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam (VUA). Editor-in-chief of journal Environmental Innovation & Societal Transitions. Previously, full professor of Environmental Economics (1997-2007) at VUA. A Master degree in Econometrics & Operations Research from Tilburg University, and a PhD from VUA. His work is much cited, indicated by more than 20,000 citations in Google Scholar. He received the Royal Shell Prize 2002, IEC's (Sant Jordi) Environmental Prize 2011, an ERC Advanced Grant in 2017, and an honorary doctorate from the Netherlands’ Open University in 2019. His latest book is 'Human Evolution Beyond Biology and Culture: Evolutionary Social, Environmental and Policy Sciences' (Cambridge University Press).


Research interests

I work on the interface of environmental economics, climate science and innovation studies. Research in recent years focuses on the design of effective and politically-feasible climate policy that accounts for undesirable systemic impacts, such as energy rebound and international carbon leakage. This involves the application of methods and insights of behavioural and evolutionary economics, operationalized through agent-based modelling. Past work covered integrated ecological-economic modelling, contributions to the growth-versus-environment debate, environmental policies applied to urban-transport issues, biodiversity valuation and policy, modelling of recycling in material-product chains, and international dimensions of environmental policy.

Selected publications

– Maestre-Andrés S, Drews S & van den Bergh J 2019, ‘Perceived fairness and public acceptability of carbon pricing: A review of the literature’, Climate Policy, 19(9): 1186-1204.

– Martin N & van den Bergh J 2019, ‘A multi-level climate club with national and sub-national members: theory and application to US states‘, Environmental Research Letters, 14, 12, 124049.

– van den Bergh JCJM & Drews S 2019, ‘Green “agrowth” – the next development stage of rich countries’. Chapter 3 in Handbook on Green Growth, edited by Roger Fouquet, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 52-66.

– Drews S, Savin I & van den Bergh J 2019, ‘Opinion clusters in academic and public debates on growth-vs-environment‘, Ecological Economics: 157: 141-155.

– Braungardt S, van den Bergh J & Dunlop T 2019, ‘Fossil fuel divestment and climate change: Reviewing contested arguments‘, Energy Research & Social Science, 50:191-200.

– van den Bergh J, Savin I & Drews S 2019, ‘Evolution of opinions in the growth-vs-environment debate: Extended replicator dynamics’, Futures, 109: 84-100.

– King L & van den Bergh J 2019, ‘Normalisation of Paris Agreement NDCs to enhance transparency and ambition‘, Environmental Research Letters 14, 084008.

– Siskova M & van den Bergh JCJM 2019, ‘Optimal urban form for global and local emissions under electric vehicle and renewable energy scenarios’, Urban Climate 29, 100472.