Venice Summer Institute 2026: Green Energy Transition and the Role of Energy in the Macroeconomy
Organizers: Aleksandra Friedl and Christian Traeger
Energy is one of the most crucial input factors into economic production. It plays a vital role in meeting individuals’ basic needs. At the same time, it plays an important and undervalued role for economic growth. Relying predominantly on fossil fuels, energy production is responsible for over 70% of current carbon emissions and, thus, current, and future climate change.
The Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas mitigation requires nations to drastically cut back on emissions and transition away from fossil fuel use. Never have nations been challenged to abandon such a crucial input to economic production and growth at such a rapid speed.
Transitioning away from fossil fuels to green energy causes many challenges for energy production and the electric grid. Yet, the sheer cost and required level of innovation as well as the costs of such a restructuring also challenges macroeconomic production and growth.
This workshop brought together economists working on directed technical change, energy modeling, and macroeconomic growth in the context of climate change. We analyzed policies and policy portfolios to steer the transition and foster community building across economic disciplines between researchers working on models of the energy transition, macroeconomists working on technical change and growth, and computational economists offering helpful techniques to model these cross-disciplinary challenges.
Program
9:00 – 9:10
Welcome and Introduction by Scientific Organizers
Session 1 - Tax Reform, Externalities, and Climate Optimism
9:10 – 9:40
Fuel Taxation and Environmental Externalities: Evidence From the World’s Largest Environmental Tax Reform
Moritz Drupp (ETH Zürich), Piero Basaglia, Sophie Behr
9:40 – 10:30
Keynote Talk I - The Surprising Case for Climate Optimism
Catherine Wolfram (MIT)
10:30 – 11:00 Morning Coffee Break
Session 2 - Carbon Pricing and the Green Transition
11:00 – 11:30
Price and Quantity Regulation in an Inflationary Economy
Dave Kelly (University of Miami), Kevin Sterling
11:30 – 12:20
Keynote Talk II - Linking Climate, Impacts, and Policy: The Next Frontier in Integrated Assessment
Valentina Bosetti (Bocconi University, EIEE)
12:20 – 13:30 Lunch
Session 3 - Climate Policy, Industry Dynamics, and the Clean Energy Transition
13:30 – 14:00
Firm Heterogeneity, Industry Dynamics and Climate Policy
Ara Jo (University of Bath), Christos Karydas
14:00 – 14:30
Forecasting the Transition: Expectation Dynamics under Climate Policy Volatility
Emanuele Campiglio (University of Bologna), Maria Alejandra Erazo Diaz, Francesco Lamperti, Roberta Terranova
14:30 – 15:00
Relying on Intermittency: Clean Energy, Storage, and Innovation in a Macro Climate Model
Claudia Gentile (University of Geneva)
15:00 – 15:30 Afternoon Coffee Break and Group Picture
Session 4 - Uncertainty, Technology Spillovers, and Transition Policy
15:30 – 15:45
Climate Implications of Regional Technology Spillovers
Gaute Hjerpassen (University of Oslo), Christian Traeger
15:45 – 16:00
When the Boundary Layer Drops: Air Quality and Healthcare Use in Mexico
Piero Basaglia (University of Bordeaux), Luis Sarmiento
16:00 - 16:30
Deep Uncertainty Quantification: With an Application to Integrated Assessment Models
Simon Scheidegger (University of Lausanne), Aleksandra Friedl, Felix Kübler, Takafumi Usui
16:30 – 17:00
Optimal Climate Policy as if the Transition Matters
Frank Venmans (London School of Economics), Emanuele Campiglio, Simon Dietz
17:00 – 17:30 Short Break
17:30 – 18:30
Policy Debate: Major Challenges in the Green Transition
Carolyn Fischer (World Bank)
Karen Pittel (ifo Institute)
Mar Reguant (IAE-CSIC)
Rick van der Ploeg (University of Oxford)
19:30 Conference Dinner (on San Servolo)
Session 5
9:00 – 9:30
The Effect of Climate News on Climate Policy Support
Andreas Lange (University of Hamburg), Enrico Longo, Mrunali Damania, Moritz Drupp, Grischa Perino
9:30 - 10:00
The Effects of Weather and Climate on Natural Gas Demand
Michael Roberts (University of Hawaii at Manoa), Ethan Hartley, Talal Khan
10:00 – 10:30
A Macroeconomic Study of Wildfire Risk
Stephie Fried (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee Break
Session 6 - Propagation and Expectations in the Climate Transition
11:00 – 11:30
The Climate Protection Gap and Private Self-Insurance
Pauline Chikhani (University of Lausanne)
11:30 – 12:00
Climate Ripples in Production Networks
Ghassane Benmir (IE University and IE School of Politics), Simone Maso, Aditya Mori, Josselin Roman, Romano Tarsia
12:00 – 12:20 Short Break
12:20 – 13:10
Keynote Talk III - The Macroeconomics of an Energy Transition
Stephane Hallegatte (World Bank)
13:10 – 13:20
Closing Remarks by Scientific Organizers
13:20 Lunch and Departure
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