Conference “Economics of Innovation, Diffusion, Growth and Environment”, 16th-18th Sept.

The conference was organized by Center of Economic Performance and Grantham Research Institute, the two research centres at London School of Economics. The conference, hosted by Royal Society of Arts in London, gathered key researchers in the field of green innovation economics such as Philippe Aghion (Harvard University), Lord Nicholas Stern (LSE), Sjak Smulders (Tilburg University), David Popp (Syracuse University) and Carolyn Fisher (Resources for the Future). One topic discussed by participants after the key-note lecture of Sjak Smulders was whether modern economic growth theory should include modeling of objectives other than GDP growth, such as quality of environment or possibility to spend time together with family and friends (the possibility, which could be limited in the fast growing economies). Another interesting conclusion which arised after a lecture by Philippe Aghion was that policies should increase the substitutability between  green technologies and dirty technologies in order to grease transition to low-emission economy.   During the conference, Jan Witajewski Baltvilks – an economist at IBS – presented his paper “Directed technological change and energy efficiency improvements”, which he coauthors with Elena Verdolini and Massimo Tavoni from FEEM. In this work, the authors use panel data on patents to forecast future progress of energy-saving technologies.   The conference Programme could be accessed via http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Agenda-v12.pdf