Evaluating Green Industrial Policy

Magnus Henrekson (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) in Stockholm), Christian Sandström (Chalmers University), Mikael Stenkula (Lund University)

Thursday 19 March 2026 18:30 - 20:00

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About this event

Western countries have adopted green industrial policies to accomplish both economic development and sustainability. By 2025, it is increasingly evident that many of these efforts are failing.

During this seminar, three Swedish professors will present their newly published co-edited anthology "A Green Entrepreneurial State? - Exploring the pitfalls of green deals". The volume covers topics such as Germany's Energiwende, the failure of green steel and Northvolt's bankruptcy. This lecture will deconstruct how industrial policy works in practice and consider whether they are an appropriate response to contemporary environmental challenges.

Author biographies

Magnus Henrekson is a professor of economics and Senior Research Fellow of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) in Stockholm, Sweden. He resigned as CEO of IFN in 2020 after 15 years of service. Until 2009, he held the Jacob Wallenberg Research Chair in the Department of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics. He is also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).

Christian Sandström is associate professor of technology management from Chalmers University of Technology, where he also received his doctoral degree (2010). His research concerns innovation policy and the interplay between technological and institutional change. Sandström is presently affiliated with Linnaeus University and is the author of several books on green bubbles.

Mikael Stenkula is Associate Professor of Economics and holds a PhD from the School of Economics and Management at Lund University. He received this degree in 2004 with his dissertation Essays on Network Effects and Money. He joined the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) in 2005. Stenkula has also taught at the Stockholm School of Economics and serves as the executive secretary of the award committee for the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, the foremost global award for research on entrepreneurship.

For further information please contact Lubala Chibwe, by email: l.chibwe@lse.ac.uk.