Economic Frontiers Program (EF)

The EF Program aspires to provide a comprehensive and rigorous framework for understanding the behavioral changes that are required to achieve social and environmental transformations and what policies and institutional reforms are needed to bring about the required incentives.

© Pongsak Tiantad | Dreamstime

© Pongsak Tiantad | Dreamstime

Explicit consideration is given to:  

  • The governance of transitional change.
  • The provision of equal life chances
  • The capacity of the economic system to deal with (prevent and adjust to) disruptive changes.
  • The conception of economic development and wellbeing in a finite and interlinked world. 

The program’s research integrates tightly with the natural, environmental, population, and systems science frameworks that IIASA is leading on, thus providing the multi-disciplinary approach needed for an understanding of the transition to sustainable, fair, and resilient economies. The program aims to act as an international hub for high-level external economic expertise as well as expertise from other relevant sciences (e.g., sociology, psychology, environmental and natural sciences, mathematics) to engage in capacity building, and to establish links with leading international research and policy institutions to leverage internal resources. 

Current EF Research Themes 

The EF program started on 1 January 2021 and its research agenda is still being developed. While the program’s current research focuses on the two themes below, as well as topical research pertaining to economic aspects of COVID-19, the program is in the process of developing a research agenda for two additional themes on the Governance of Transitions (GT) and Economic Development and Wellbeing in a Finite and Interlinked World (EFW). Aspects of these themes are already present in the research undertaken under the two existing research themes where relevant.

Economics of Equal Life Chances (EELC)

Research undertaken as part of the EELC theme focuses on issues related to distributional consequences of development trends and transformative policies, especially as it relates to vulnerable populations. More

Economics of disruptive change (EDC)

The EDC theme embraces economic behaviors under the risk of large disruptive (regime changing) shocks, including climate tipping points, eco-system breakdown, pandemic shocks, and disruptive technological or political changes. More


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Last edited: 29 September 2021

CONTACT DETAILS

Michael Kuhn

Program Director and Principal Research Scholar Economic Frontiers Program

PUBLICATIONS

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313