June 2025: Participation of several group members at ISEE/Degrowth Conference in Oslo
Several members of our group visited Oslo/Norway to attend the 18th Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) which was also jointly organized as the 11th International Degrowth Conference.
Five Phd candidates as well as Professor Kopp presented their current work and enjoyed the discussions with the attendees of the conference.
Dilsuz Nurmukhanmatova presented her study, "Market Power, Digitalization, and Income Inequality in Europe", in which she revealed that while higher firm‑level markups tend to amplify income inequality, increased ICT investment significantly attenuates these inequality‑widening effects of market power.
Aimen Abbas gave insights on her study "Assessing the Distributional Impact of Environmental Policy Stringency in the EU". This study finds that stricter environmental policies raise pre- and post-tax national income inequality, but, thanks to taxation and in-kind transfers, have no significant effect on disposable income inequality.
Marcel Böhl’s study, “Can We Tackle Inequality & Biodiversity Loss Together?” indicates that in high‑income countries, efforts to reduce inequality alone can inadvertently harm biodiversity, highlighting the necessity of pairing redistribution policies with targeted conservation measures to safeguard ecosystems in these countries.
Inga Stademann presented her work "Success determinants and impact of sustainability projects on overall sustainability of universities" in the form of a poster. She finds that early planning for project continuation and aligning project goals with institutional sustainability strategies contribute meaningfully to long-term transformation efforts.
Markus Nabernegg presented his work "Extreme Income Inequality in Ecuador - Dollarization, Commodity Price Boom, and Citizen Revolution in Ecuador", revealing that Ecuador's economy shifted from an extractive to a weakly inclusive system during commodity booms, but rising economic power concentration and the COVID-19 shock have eroded redistribution and threatened this fragile process.
Thomas Kopp displayed his research titled "The Relation between Income Inequality and Dietary Diversity". This study finds that cutting income inequality boosts dietary diversity in moderately and highly unequal societies but can reduce it in already equal ones, so efforts to lower inequality should also protect diet variety.
Thomas Kopp and Markus Nabernegg also organized a special session entitled "New Research on the Relationship between Economic Inequality and Environmental Impact", which brought together leading scholars in the field - including Lutz Sager, Ilona Otto, Svenja Flechtner, and Steffen Lange - to examine the trade-offs between inequality and environmental degradation and to challenge the political and economic paradigms shaping the inequality-ecology nexus.
