Mathias Larsen

@haugejostein Good to hear you like it!

This is a fantastic new paper analysing the political economy of China's green transition. It argues that the interplay between authoritarian centralisation, state-steering of capital, and long-term economic planning is a key reason China has become a clean energy powerhouse.

New op-ed out in LSE Business Review @LSEforBusiness

@haugejostein Thanks for sharing!

In the West, central banks are independent. In China, the central bank is not independent. This difference is proving to be a major factor in explaining why China has been more successful than the West in driving clean energy investment. A new pathbreaking paper from LSE’s Grantham Research Institute finds that the independence of Western central banks *constrains* clean energy investment, whereas the non-independence of China’s central bank *forces it* to take direct action to support the green transition. “In comparing climate policies, we first find that the People’s Bank of China is the only central bank that conducts meaningful monetary policy that supports the green transition, such as through targeted green lending, green bonds in collateral frameworks, and differing interest rates on reserve requirements.” The paper further argues that the scale of the climate crisis requires rethinking the model of central bank independence — and that Western governments should learn from China’s more interventionist approach. Link to full paper in replies.

Great to see our data used by the @IEA in their new World Energy Outlook. The outlook uses our data to show the massive increase in Chinese outward investments in clean tech manufacturing.

Pleased to have my research featured in @nytimes reporting on China's role in a global green transition nytimes.com/2025/11/10/cli…

New paper by @MLundLarsen and James Jackson explores the relation between central bank independence and climate action lse.ac.uk/granthaminstit…

New paper out with @James7jackson in the working paper series of @GRI_LSE: 'Revisiting central bank independence for the climate era: insights from the People’s Bank of China' lse.ac.uk/granthaminstit…

New article out in @LSEforBusiness:

New article out in Ecological Economics with @jhasselbalch: 'Reimagining growth futures: Overcoming the false binary between green growth and degrowth' sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Big new report @NZpolicylab on China’s surge in outbound investment in clean tech manufacturing. China’s Green Leap Outward: The rapid scale- up of overseas Chinese clean-tech manufacturing investments netzeropolicylab.com/china-green-le…

“Chinese overseas clean-tech manufacturing investment is nearly $100 billion per year. The Marshall Plan was $200b—and locked Europe into US tech and standards. When we see sums of this size, we can ask whether it will have a similar effect on the globe.” phenomenalworld.org/interviews/the…

I’m excited to have started a job at the LSE @LSEnews as a Senior Policy Fellow, leading the China work at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment @GRI_LSE

@michaelxpettis A pleasure to contribute to the blog!

In the latest issue of CRI, Mathias Larsen discusses China's clean industries in the context of its growth model. carnegieendowment.org/posts/2025/09/…

New op-ed out in @CarnegieEndow china-blog, edited by @michaelxpettis: “How China’s Growth Model Determines Its Climate Performance: Rather than climate ambitions, compatibility with investment and exports is why China supports both green and high-emission technologies.”

New policy report just published with groundbreaking data showing that China's new global role in the green transition is investing in manufacturing, not financing infrastructure: "China’s Green Leap Outward" netzeropolicylab.com/china-green-le…

New article with @James7jackson out in Competition & Change: The green versus environmental state: Reviewing two decades of conceptualizing state-led approaches journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10…

New op-ed out in The Diplomat @Diplomat_APAC : 'China’s Political System Makes Consumption-led Growth Impossible: Beijing’s prioritization of political security necessitates a reliance on investment and exports – not consumption – to power the economy.' thediplomat.com/2025/08/chinas…

Nice to see this piece I wrote with @MLundLarsen on Green Finance and China featured in the latest July 2026 issue of the EU-China Energy Magazine: ececp.eu/en/eu-china-en….

New article out in World Development @WorldDevJournal: 'Green industrial policy under financial constraints: Insights from India’s state-led decarbonization' sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

NEW ARTICLE out in Review of International Political Economy @RIPEJournal: The archetype of a ‘big green state’? What China tells us about green macrofinancial regimes doi.org/10.1080/096922…