Energy transitions are expected to redistribute economic benefits to new actors, from local communities to countries with renewable resources. My research explores the classic political economy question of who benefits, looking at the role of communities, states, and firms. At the community level, I look at attitudes towards energy transitions in Jordan, a lower-middle income country rapidly transitioning to renewables with attractive jobs in this industry. Despite the top-down nature of energy policymaking in the authoritarian political context, household surveys reveal that people are highly supportive of energy transitions, especially if they perceive renewables as benefitting their communities. However, there are tensions between countries and firms that make it difficult for countries to see the kinds of local benefits present in Jordan in many other contexts. I argue that the transfer of green technologies promised in the Paris Agreement is not materializing at a large scale, des

2

1/23/2025

The state is back, and it means business. Since the turn of the 21st century, state-owned enterprises, sovereign funds, and policy banks have vastly expanded their control over assets and markets. Concurrently, governments have experimented with increasingly assertive modalities of statism, from techno-industrial policies and spatial development strategies to economic nationalism and trade and investment restrictions. This book argues that we are currently witnessing a historic arc in the trajectories of state intervention, characterized by a drastic reconfiguration of the state's role as promoter, supervisor, shareholder-investor, and direct owner of capital across the world economy. It offers a comprehensive analysis of this “new state capitalism”, as commentators increasingly refer to it, and maps out its key empirical manifestations across a range of geographies, cases, and issue areas.

11

11/18/2024

UCL IIPP in conversation series 10th Oct 2024 Uncommon Wealth is the little known and shocking history of how Britain treated its former non-white colonies after the end of empire. It is the story of how an interconnected group of British capitalists enabled horrific inequality across the globe, profiting in colonial Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. However, the greed unleashed in this era would boomerang, now leaving many ordinary Britons wondering where their own prosperity has gone. Ranging from Jamaica to Singapore, Ghana to Britain, this is a blistering account of how buried decisions of decades past are ravaging Britain today. Speaker: Dr Kojo Koram | Reader in Law at Birkbeck College, University of London Discussant: Reverend Professor Keith Magee | Visiting Professor in Cultural Justice at the UCL IIPP Chair: Dr Cecilia Rikap | Head of Research and Associate Professor in Economics at the UCL IIPP

4

10/14/2024

As digital platforms have become more integral to not just how we live, but also to how we do politics, the rules governing online expression, behaviour, and interaction created by large multinational technology firms --- popularly termed ‘content moderation,’ ‘platform governance,’ or ‘trust and safety’ --- have increasingly become the target of government regulatory efforts seeking to shape them. This book provides a conceptual and empirical analysis of this important and emerging tech policy terrain of ‘platform regulation.’ How, why, and where exactly is it happening? Why now? And how do we best understand the vast array of strategies being deployed across jurisdictions to tackle this issue? Speaker: Dr Robert Gorwa Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Discussant: Marisol Manfredi PhD Candidate of Sustainable Development & Climate Change (IUSS Pavia + University of Pisa), Chair: Dr Cecilia Rikap Head of Research & Associate Prof in Economics, IIPP

5

5/8/2024

For centuries, industrialization and factory-based production have been core ingredients in economic growth, development, and innovation. This symbiotic relationship between industrialization and economic prosperity is now changing. 'Megatrends' - trends within the domains of technology, economy, society, and ecology that have a global impact - are changing the ability of the manufacturing sector to serve as the engine of growth, changing traditional ideas of technological progress, and changing growth and development opportunities in both the global South and the global North. Four megatrends are particularly worthy of note: the rise of services, digital automation technologies, globalization of production, and ecological breakdown. In this book, Jostein Hauge provides a novel analysis of how these megatrends are changing industrialization, and charts new pathways for industrial policy and global governance.

17

2/1/2024

Mariana Mazzucato | Professor in the Economics of Innovation & Public Value and Founding Director, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Welcome & Framing of Digital Rents on Platforms Tim O'Reilly | Founder, CEO, and Chairman of O’Reilly Media and Visiting Professor of Practice, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose [PAPER 1] – Algorithmic Attention Rents Ilan Strauss | Senior Research Associate, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose [PAPER 2] – Advertising as Attention Rent & Market Power on Amazon Rufus Rock | Research Assistant, UCL IIPP [PAPER 3] – Big Data Evidence on Amazon's Ability to Allocate Clicks

3

10/16/2023

Power and Progress demonstrates that the path of technology was once – and can again be – brought under control. The tremendous computing advances of the last half century can become empowering and democratizing tools, but not if all major decisions remain in the hands of a few hubristic tech leaders striving to build a society that elevates their own power and prestige. With their breakthrough economic theory and manifesto for a better society, Acemoglu and Johnson provide the understanding and the vision to reshape how we innovate and who really gains from technological advances so we can create real prosperity for all. Speakers: Simon Johnson, Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Julius Mugwagwa, Associate Professor in Innovation & Development, UCL Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) Cecilia Rikap, City University of London Professor Rainer Kattel, Deputy Director UCL IIPP

6

6/5/2023