The project is led by Philippe Aghion, Professor at the Collège de France and INSEAD.
Duration of the project: 2023-2026
This project aims to understand the role of the State, civil society and the market in the energy transition towards clean technologies. It aims to specify how these different actors could, together, encourage companies to redirect production and innovation towards clean technologies. Within the framework of the Schumpeterian approach, the goal will be to identify the optimal micro- and macroeconomic factors involved, such as the price of carbon, subsidies for green innovation, the use of less polluting energy sources (particularly nuclear), the role of investors, and the place of the consumer. The project is divided into seven sub-projects and is particularly interesting for (re)insurance companies from an asset management point of view. It also showcases the key role played by technical progress – and therefore innovative growth – in the fight against global warming.
Fields of research / technical cooperation
• Environment and Resource Economics;
• The Economics of Growth and Innovation;
• The Economics of Entrepreneurship and Firm Dynamics;
• Macroeconomics and Irreversible Investments;
• The Economics of Industrial Policy and Competition.
Within the Collège de France, the researchers will cooperate with chemists and lawyers also working on energy transition, with whom they plan to organize joint workshops and to generate collaborative research projects.
Philippe Aghion
is a Professor at the College de France and at INSEAD, and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and a fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the economics of growth. With Peter Howitt, he pioneered the so-called Schumpeterian Growth paradigm which was subsequently used to analyze the design of growth policies and the role of the state in the growth process. Much of this work is summarized in their joint book Endogenous Growth Theory (MIT Press, 1998) and The Economics of Growth (MIT Press, 2009), in his book with Rachel Griffith on Competition and Growth (MIT Press, 2006), and in his survey “What Do We Learn from Schumpeterian Growth Theory” (joint with U. Akcigit and P. Howitt).
In 2001, Philippe Aghion received the Yrjo Jahnsson Award of the best European economist under age 45, in 2009 he received the John Von Neumann Award, and in March 2020 he shared the BBVA “Frontier of Knowledge Award” with Peter Howitt for “developing an economic growth theory based on the innovation that emerges from the process of creative destruction”. More recently Philippe Aghion produced a new book entitled The Power of Creative destruction (Odile Jacob, Harvard University Press) joint with C. Antonin et S. Bunel. While providing a reappraisal of the foundations of economic success and a blueprint for change, The Power of Creative Destruction also shows that a fair and prosperous future is ultimately ours to make.
