Michael Sureth

Michael Sureth is a researcher in the working group Welfare and Policy Design. His research integrates planetary boundaries into welfare economic analysis and evaluates policy interventions for transitions towards more sustainability. He employs analytical and integrated assessment modeling as well as quantitative methods to analyze the economic implications of environmental problems captured within the planetary boundaries framework, with particular emphasis on addressing multiple environmental externalities related to climate change and biodiversity loss.

Currently, he works on building theoretical and conceptual foundations for public economic analyses of the scarcities and uncertainties imposed by planetary boundaries. His research bridges theoretical frameworks with empirical policy evaluation: he analyzes how incorporating multiple planetary boundaries — beyond climate change — into integrated assessment models can inform policy design, while also conducting applied studies that assess the effectiveness, costs, and co-benefits of specific policy instruments. Recent work includes evaluating consumption taxes for reducing environmental footprints from food systems, demonstrating how different policy approaches can simultaneously address greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, water use, and nutrient pollution while accounting for household welfare impacts and distributional effects.

Through this integrated approach, he identifies policy instruments that address multiple planetary boundaries by quantifying synergies and trade-offs across environmental dimensions, economic costs, and social equity considerations.

Simple language summary

Michael Sureth studies which policies can help us achieve three things at once: protect the environment, provide good living conditions for people and keep the economy working well. He focuses on finding the best policies to make our society more sustainable.

He uses computer models and statistics to understand environmental problems and test different solutions. His work combines two approaches: First, he develops new ways to think about how environmental limits affect our economy. Second, he studies real-world policies to see if they actually work and what they cost.

For example, he recently studied food taxes in Europe. He found that changing taxes on meat products or pricing emissions from all foods can reduce pollution, water use, and harm to nature. All this can be achieved at reasonable costs for households. This shows that one policy can help solve several environmental problems at once.

His goal is to find smart policies that protect both the environment and people's well-being. He carefully examines where policies help multiple problems and where solving one problem might create others.