About PECan

PECan (The Political Economy of Climate Policy and Finance) is a Junior Research Group funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). We are based at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

The PECan Research Group is led by Achim Hagen and explores the socio-ecological interactions between climate, political and financial systems.

We address research questions such as:

  • How high are physical and political transition risks for the financial sector and how can they best be measured?

  • How are climate transition risks priced on financial markets and what are the implications for different key stakeholders?

  • How does climate policy making interact with the financial sector and its regulation?

  • Which politico-economic barriers prevent a sustainable transformation and how can they be resolved?

  • How can retail investors participate in the transition and what potential does such participation hold?

We combine theoretical models, empirical research, scenario analysis, agent-based models and climate stress tests.

We involve central banks, NGOs, think tanks and private actors in our research.

Recent Publications

Rischen, L. (2026). The impact of green financial and monetary policy on the low-carbon energy transition: Global empirical evidence. Energy Economics, 159, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2026.109379. 

Bohnet, M.-P. et al (2026). Integrating political economy and financial markets in qualitative scenario analysis to elicit EU decarbonization pathways. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2026.100329

Fliegel, P. (2026). How you measure transition risk matters: comparing and evaluating climate transition risk metrics. Journal of Corporate Finance. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092911992500207X

Hagen, A. (2025). Contested Compromise: Public Policy Reforms as Share Contests. Economics & Politics 0: 1–11.https://doi.org/10.1111/ecpo.70024.

Fliegel, P. (2025). How (Not) to Measure Companies' Climate Transition Risk: A Framework and Categorized Literature Review. Corp Soc Responsib Environ Manag.https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.3094

Contact us

 

Address

Humboldt University Berlin
PECan Research Group
Resource Economics
Hannoversche Str. 27 (Haus 12)
D-10115 Berlin

Phone: +49 (30) 2093-46381

E-mail: pecan-climate.lewi(at)hu-berlin.de

Internet: www.pecan-climate.org