Economic Frameworks
Develop economic frameworks and tools that place decarbonization at the center of policymaking.
The rapid decarbonization of the economy presents both urgent challenges and important opportunities for shared prosperity, security, and equity. Yet current economic policy frameworks are not well suited to manage this complexity, too often treating decarbonization as a cost rather than a pathway to growth.
Kleinman Center researchers address this gap by developing economic frameworks and tools that place decarbonization at the center of policymaking. We explore how climate risks, clean energy investments, and the dynamics of low-carbon transitions shape economic outcomes, and we work to integrate climate and energy data into forecasting and decision-making. Our goal is to equip policymakers with actionable strategies that treat decarbonization as an engine of economic stability and growth.
Faculty Leadership
Heather Boushey
Professor of PracticeHeather Boushey is a professor of practice at the Kleinman Center. Boushey served in the Biden administration as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist to the President’s Investing in America cabinet.
EconClimate Lab
The EconClimate Lab advances forward looking economic policy ideas that make energy policy benefit workers, communities, and the American economy.
Whether and how the United States embraces a clean energy transition will define its economic trajectory for decades to come. Yet policymakers are ill-equipped to meet that moment. The economic tools and frameworks they rely on were not designed for the scale, complexity, and urgency of a clean energy transition.
This work has never been more urgent—or more actionable. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act created a real-world laboratory for economic policy at scale—and their implementation, reversals, and shifts under the current Administration have generated a new set of questions that existing frameworks weren’t built to answer. Across the economics profession, scholars are beginning to ask those questions. The emergence of modern American industrial strategy has reframed the clean energy transition as a core national competitiveness priority—creating new demand for exactly the kind of rigorous, implementation-focused economic thinking the Lab is positioned to provide.
‘We’re All Climate Economists Now’
With climate change affecting everything from household finances to electric grids, the profession is increasingly focused on how society can mitigate carbon emissions and cope with their impact.
