van den Bergh, Jeroen – ICREA Memoir 2021

Jeroen van den Bergh

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Social & Behavioural Sciences

ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of Environmental Science & Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Honorary Professor of Environmental & Resource Economics in the School of Economics & Business and the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA). Editor-in-chief of the journal Environmental Innovation & Societal Transitions 2011-2021. Previously, Professor of Environmental Economics (1997-2007) at VUA. A Master degree in Econometrics & Operations Research from Tilburg University, and a PhD from VUA. He received the 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-policy research, and innovation studies. Work in recent years focuses on 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 and questionnaire surveys. 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

– Exadaktylos, F., and J. van den Bergh (2021). Energy-related behaviour and rebound when rationality, self-interest and willpower are limited. Nature Energy 6(12): 1104–1113.

– Maestre-Andrés, S., S. Drews, I. Savin, J. van den Bergh (2021). Carbon tax acceptability with information provision and mixed revenue uses. Nature Communications 12, Article number 7017.

– Konc, T., I. Savin and J. van den Bergh (2021). The social multiplier of environmental policy: Application to carbon taxation. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 105, 102396.

– van den Bergh, J., and I. Savin (2021). Impact of carbon pricing on low-carbon innovation and deep decarbonisation: Controversies and path forward. Environmental and Resource Economics 80: 705-715.

– King, L., and J. van den Bergh (2021). Potential carbon leakage under the Paris Agreement. Climatic Change 165, 52.

– van den Bergh, J., Castro, J., S. Drews, F. Exadaktylos, J. Foramitti, F. Klein, T. Konc and I. Savin (2020). Designing an effective climate-policy mix: Accounting for instrument synergy. Climate Policy 21(6): 745-764

– Foramitti, J., I. Savin and J. van den Bergh (2021). Emission tax vs. permit trading under bounded rationality and dynamic markets. Energy Policy 148, Part B, 112009.

– Savin, I., S. Drews and J. van den Bergh (2021). GEM: A short “Growth-vs-Environment” module for survey research. Ecological Economics 187, 107092.

– van den Bergh, J. (2021). Reflections on editing EIST for ten years. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 41: 2-9.

– Hänsel, M.C., and J. van den Bergh (2021). Taxing interacting externalities of ocean acidification, global warming and eutrophication: A general equilibrium analysis. Natural Resource Modeling 34, e12317.

– Klein, F., S. Drews, I. Savin and J. van den Bergh (2021). How work patterns affect leisure activities and energy consumption: A time-use analysis for Finland and France. Energy Research & Social Science, 76, 102054.