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.

The hallmark of the research undertaken under the auspices of the EDC theme is that it studies the nexus of pre-shock and post-shock behaviors within a coherent framework. Pre-shock behaviors include prevention and precaution, for example, through the build-up of adaptive capacity, while post-shock behaviors include adaptation and the potential to choose different (and more sustainable/resilient) pathways of recovery. Studies typically involve modeling and empirical applications. For more information on topics and methods used see the section themes and models below.

YSSP 2025 at the EF program

The Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) at IIASA provides a great opportunity for early career scientist to progress in their research under the guidance of IIASA researchers. The application period for the summer 2025 is open with October 16th 2024. More information on opportunities in the Economic Frontiers program.

Selected Publications

Feichtinger, G., Lambertini, L., Leitmann, G., & Wrzaczek, S. (2022). Managing the tragedy of commons and polluting emissions: a unified view. European Journal of Operational Research 303 (1) 487-499. 10.1016/j.ejor.2022.02.034.

Caulkins, J.P., Grass, D., Feichtinger, G., Hartl, R.F., Kort, P.M., Prskawetz, A., Seidl, A., & Wrzaczek, S. (2021). The optimal lockdown intensity for COVID-19. Journal of Mathematical Economics 93 e102489. 10.1016/j.jmateco.2021.102489.

Themes

Optimal pandemic management

Modelling household behaviour in the face of disaster risk

Analytically investigating and extending IAMs

Control of polluting emissions

Health shocks

Models, tools, datasets

2SOCS

Two-stage optimal control models with stochastic switch (2SOCS)

RiskBehaviour

Modelling Risk Behaviour (MORIBE)

Projects

Environment and finance

Long-term spillover impacts of financial markets on the environment (PVARGLOBIOM)

Coal transition

Modelling the regional welfare impacts of just coal transitions (JUSTCOAL)

News

girl in lockdown looking out of the window

05 September 2022

Lessons learned from COVID-19 mitigation measures

Due to the uncertainty of the timing of vaccine approval at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers struggled to find the best mitigation measures. In a new study, researchers analyzed how the expectation of a vaccine influences optimal lockdown measures.

Events