Johannes Brehm is a PhD candidate in the governance programme and affiliated with the Centre for Sustainability at the Hertie School. Moreover, he is a Research Associate with the "Sustainability and Governance" research group at RWI – Leibnitz Institute for Economic Research (Berlin office). Before his PhD, Johannes worked at international organisations (ILO, World Bank) and national think tanks. Johannes holds master's degrees in (Development) Economics from SOAS (London, Master of Science, 2019) and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Master of Science 2018) and a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from TU Dresden (Bachelor of Arts, 2016). His research focuses on the political economy of the green transition. The overarching objective of Johannes' dissertation is to identify drivers which facilitate and barriers that inhibit the transformation to a low-carbon economy.
Main supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Flachsland
Research/Policy Publications
Gruhl, H., Brehm, J., Ghosh, A. et al. (2025). Adjusting to the New Normal: River Flood Risk and the Real Estate Market. Environ Resource Econ.
Moore, N., Brehm, J., and Henri G. (2025). Driving innovation? Carbon tax effects in the Swedish transport sector. Journal of Public Economics, Vol 248.
Brehm, J., Pestel, N., Schaffner, S., & Schmitz, L. (2025). From low emission zone to academic track: Environmental policy effects on educational achievement in elementary school. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 103165.
Brehm, J., Edmondson, D., Flachsland, C., aus dem Moore, N., Koch, N., Koller, F., Gruhl H. (2024). Anticipatory climate policy mix pathways: a framework for ex-ante construction and assessment applied to the road transport sector. Climate policy.
Brehm, J., & Gruhl, H. (2024). Leveraging machine learning to understand opposition to environmental tax increases across countries and over time. Environmental Research Letters, 19(8), 084035.
Brehm, J., and Gruhl, H. (2024). Increase in concerns about climate change following climate strikes and civil disobedience in Germany. Nature Communications.
