PRFDHR Seminar: The Political Economics of Green Transitions, Professor Torsten Persson
Reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases may be almost impossible without a green transition - a process of radically changing consumption and production patterns. Professor Torsten Persson and his co-author Professor Timothy Besley, put forward a model where switches in consumption and production create a dynamic complementarity that can help or hinder a green transition. In democratic societies, governments cannot commit to future policy paths and must aggregate conflicting interests across different voters.