Prof. Dr. Jan Christoph Steckel

CERES - Political Economy for Inclusive Wealth Governance and Sustainability. Funded by Werner Siemes Foundation.
AdJUST - Towards a just energy transition. Funded by the European Union. 
ELEVATE - Enabling and Leveraging Climate Action Towards net-zero emissions. Funded by the European Union. 
GeoClimRisk - The Geopolitics of Climate Risks. Funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) on behalf of the German Federal Foreign Office as part of the Climate Diplomacy Action Programme (CDAP)
TRANSFORM - Research for evidence-based climate policy through agricultural and food systems transformation, financing preservation of forest sinks and a just transition of the economy. Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
EVIDENCE - Evidence-based research on climate policy reforms for policy-based lending in low- and middle-income countries. Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

I teach two modules at the Technical University of Munich's School of Social Science and Technology.

In winter, I offer a blocked lecture on the Economic Instruments of Climate Policy (SOT86132). This module aims to give students a possibilitiy to evaluate climate policy instruments from an economic perspective, including aspects of the political economy. The module covers core topics of climate economics with a focus on economic policy instruments. Key topics include:

• Foundations of welfare economics and economic evaluation of public policies
• Market failures, externalities and climate policy interventions
• Economic instruments for climate policy, in particular carbon taxes and emissions trading
• Comparison of market-based instruments and regulatory approaches
• Political economy aspects of climate policy
• Distributional effects, public acceptance and implementation challenges
• International Climate Policy Architecture
• Fundamentals of Game Theory
• Models of the science policy interface 

In summer, I give a seminar on the distributional effects of climate policy (SOT86142). With the course, we aim to dig deeper into the distributional effect of climate policies. Specifically, it looks at how climate policies can result in unequal costs and benefits, how these can influence politics, and how policies can be designed to mitigate some of these effects. It thus provides a more holistic understanding of climate policy and impacts. In doing so, it touches on literature in economics and political science. The course follows a hybrid approach, where the first block will use lectures to cover key concepts and ideas, and the second and third blocks will follow a seminar style, requiring active participation from students.

Please reach out if you have additional questions regarding the modules. 

Please find a selection of my ongoing research work. For a list of published papers please refer to my google scholar or orcid profile. 

Political Economy & distributional effects

• The political consequences of energy price shocks: Evidence from Germany. With Théo Konc, Jacob Edenhofer, Thomas Sterner and Jens Ewald. Working paper.
• The political economy of carbon taxation: a systematic review of the case study literature. With Franziska Klein and Niklas Kramer. Working Paper available on request.
• Burden your neighbor? Distributional effects of the EU CBAM on EU trading partners. With Timothé Beaufils, Johannes Gallé, Michael Jakob, Matthias Kalkuhl and Joschka Wanner. Working Paper available on request
• A Political Backlash to Job Losses in Mining? The Case of Colombia. With Charlotte Bez and Lennard Naumann. Working paper available on request.
• What Drives Public Backlash to Climate Policy? The Case of the German Heating Reform. With Niklas Kramer and Théo Konc. Working paper available on request. 
• Reforming Fossil Fuel Subsidies with Citizens' Approval: The Case of Colombia. With Charlotte S. Bez, Jorge Bonilla, Brigitte Castaneda Rodriguez, Jorge García, Leonard Missbach & Farah Mohammadzadeh Valencia. Working Paper.

Just energy transitions & coal phase out: 

• Coal fired power plants and industrial development. Evidence from Indonesia. With Leonard Missbach, Sebastian Kraus & Sebastian Renner. Working paper.
• Not Just a Transition.  Evaluating the Just Energy Transition Partnership with South Africa using stock market data. With Samson Mukanjari, Thomas Sterner and Dambala Gelo. Working paper available on request. 

Sustainable development trade-offs

• Negative health effects of a carbon price can outweigh the climate benefits in developing countries. With Raavi Aggarwal, Leonard Missbach, E. Somanathan & Thomas Sterner. Working paper.