Gregor Semieniuk

Gregor is a Lecturer in Economics at SOAS University of London. Before joining SOAS, he was a Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) of the University of Sussex, working on the Horizon 2020 project DOLFINS - Distributed Global Financial Systems for Society. A Foreign Fulbright Fellow, Gregor completed his PhD in Economics at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where he conducted research on the INET-funded project Growth, Distribution and Stability.

He will be leading IIPP’s work on the green economy and sustainable development, focussing on the relationship between sources of finance and the direction of innovation.
 

Research summary

Gregor’s research focusses on the role of energy in economic activity. First, through the lens of the economics of innovation Gregor analyses how heterogeneous sources of finance, including public ones, influence the direction of innovation in the renewable energy sector. Harnessing increasing availability of transaction-level data for powerplant financing, this research interrogates both how today’s financing decisions influence the path and pace of the energy transition, and the distributional consequences of finance directed towards renewable energy. This is complemented by research on the profitability of innovative companies active in manufacturing renewable energy plant and equipment. Second, through the lens of growth theory Gregor examines the importance of energy in aggregate technical change both at the national and global level. One question to answer is to what extent ‘decoupling’ from energy use has occurred at a global level and is likely to occur in the near future.

Selected publications