Getting to know Professor Johanna Arlinghaus: Insights on sustainability research and teaching

The Centre for Sustainability is excited to welcome Johanna Arlinghaus to the Hertie School this academic year as Assistant Professor of Economics and Sustainability. Professor Arlinghaus is the fourth faculty member at the centre and is spearheading the new Environmental Economics working group, contributing to the centre’s comprehensive and innovative research. Professor Arlinghaus also has the unique distinction of being the first Hertie faculty member who is also a Hertie alum.

Welcome to the Hertie School and the Centre for Sustainability! Can you share some of your background and what initially drew you to the field of sustainability?

Thank you very much! I am extremely glad to be joining the Hertie School and the Centre for Sustainability for the Academic Year 2024-2025. I am an environmental economist, and I am interested in investigating the functioning of different policy instruments to support emissions mitigation and carbon dioxide removal. Methodologically, I largely use econometric methods for causal inference and large micro-level datasets to evaluate policies.

My interest in sustainability topics, particularly in the relationship between tax and the environment, has been strongly influenced by my work at the OECD Centre for Tax Policy Administration, where I worked for four years with government delegates within a fantastic team of economists. This work also shaped my interest in evaluating environmental policies within the tax policy system as a whole.

You are the first Hertie faculty member who is also a Hertie graduate. What role has Hertie played in your trajectory, and what excites you about being part of the academic community at Hertie again?

The strong sense of the possibility to create a better and more sustainable future instilled at Hertie, combined with the conviction that we all have a role to play in this endeavour, strongly shaped my career choices. In addition, the network and community of students and alumni working in extremely fascinating and diverse areas has been great. For example, I don’t think I would have applied to the OECD job if it hadn’t been for the Hertie School and the many role models I got to know while I was a student there. I am now excited to be part of this community again, albeit in a very different role, and I look forward to working with the students. I still find the attitude of being a change-maker – which students continue to embrace – very inspiring!

Could you tell us a little bit about your current research and any key sustainability challenges you are addressing?

Most of my research is concerned with the design, effects and acceptance of different environmental policy instruments. For example, in one of my papers, we investigate the impact of a bank liquidity shock on lending to firms that participate in the European emissions trading system. In a different project, we ask citizens in Berlin and Paris about their attitudes towards congestion pricing, and which framing (or “pitch”) of congestion pricing they find most appealing. It turns out that when we communicate a congestion price as a policy to reduce air pollution, support for this policy instrument increases by roughly ten percentage points among respondents, compared to those in the control group. That’s a very large effect, from which we could draw some guidance for how we communicate urban policies: it appears that air pollution and health is something that people really care about! During my recent postdoc in Oxford, I also became interested in different methods and policies to support carbon dioxide removal, which will be an important policy area as we move closer to reaching net-zero targets.

What can students and colleagues expect from your courses? How do you approach teaching sustainability-related topics?

First of all, I hope that my courses can convey the fascination and curiosity I have for empirical research in environmental economics. Additionally, I strive for my courses to be inclusive for all students and to be characterised by an atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable speaking up and contributing to the discussion.

Most of my classes will have a dual focus: discussing economic principles related to environmental policy on the one hand, and the good use of data for research purposes on the other. Going forward, I also aim to integrate more topics relating to environmental justice into my teaching.

Collaboration is critical to sustainability work. Are there any cross-disciplinary collaborations you are particularly looking forward to at Hertie?

The breadth and diversity of topics offered at Hertie was one of the key factors that excited me about joining this school, and I’m eager to learn more about my colleagues’ research. I am particularly excited about potential collaborations with the Data Science Lab, as well as with colleagues who study behaviour, political economy, sociology, media, and voting. All of these will be key topics as we transition to net-zero, particularly since a good understanding of citizen’s preferences can help design effective, but also acceptable policies, based on data-driven and evidence-based insights.

If you want to know more about Professor Arlinghaus’ research, join us on Wednesday, 9 October for the first Sustainability Colloquium of the semester, where she will present her research on the effect of information framing on policy support. Register here.