The venture capital industry is hampered by its own focus on short-term returns, according to the startup incubator of the Stockholm School of Economics. SSE Business Lab is now closing a new 40 million SEK fund backed by Bonnier Ventures and well-known profiles like Anna Nordell-Westling, Sven Hagströmer, Anna Kinberg Batra and Sebastian Knutsson. “Long-term thinking amplifies the potential returns”, says CEO Julia Delin.

Even bigger steps towards the goal of getting more students to form companies are being taken by the Stockholm School of Economics and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The schools are strengthening their joint program and are assisted by the entrepreneurs behind Budbee, Estrid and PocketLaw, as well as investors from Summa Equity and Kinnevik.

Against the background of fast rising gasoline and diesel prices in 2022, a number of European countries have reduced fuel tax rates, often in the form of temporary “gas tax holidays”. In this policy brief, SITE researchers Julius Andersson and Celina Tippmann, analyse the tax incidence by comparing the gasoline price development in Sweden to that in Denmark, where the fuel tax rate remained unchanged.

The concern of Russian gas supply disruption and its implications has never been as serious. Chloé Le Coq, Professor at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (CRED) and a Research Fellow at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), discusses how nudging energy consumers to lower their demand may support the plans of the European Commission (EC).

It is no secret that what we eat and how this has been produced plays a large part in the process of climate change. While we know that changing our eating habits can have a meaningful impact on the environment, changing does not seem to be as easy as it sounds – especially not when factoring in the cultural meaning our culinary habits carry. Valentina Bosetti, Dr. Friederike Döbbe and Hannes Leo presented their findings during the event Tours d’ Europe, on 14 June. 

SITE and NES (New Economic School) researchers investigate how multinational firms manage their relationships with governments under the threat of expropriation. Exploring micro data from the oil and gas industry worldwide, they show that the multinationals delay investment, production and tax payments by more than five years in countries with weak institutions relative to countries with strong ones. These findings are consistent with the theory suggesting that delaying rents to the government in absence of formal enforcement could decrease the risk of expropriation.

Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war, the West has been contemplating sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports. For the EU, this plan poses a significant challenge due to the long-existing sizable dependency on Russian energy. In this brief, we outline the possible effects of banning Russian oil and gas on the energy import bill across the EU.

In a recently published op-ed, Torbjörn Becker, Director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, discusses why Russia must be forced to pay a higher price for its war in Ukraine. Sanctions should be directed at oil and gas exports, and it is also time to increase the pressure on the banking system. Frozen Russian assets in the West could later become a good basis for Ukraine's reconstruction.

Can oil and gas sanctions and EU’s plans to reduce dependence on Russian energy affect EU transition to renewables? Elena Paltseva, Associate Professor at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), shares her insights and discusses the current European growth strategy.

The recent record-high gas prices have triggered legitimate concerns regarding the EU’s energy security, especially with dependence on natural gas from Russia. This brief discusses the historical and current risks associated with Russian gas imports. SITE researchers Chloé Le Coq and Elena Paltseva argue that decreasing the reliance on Russian gas may not be feasible in the short-to-mid-run, especially with the EU’s goals of green transition and the electrification of the economy. To ensure the security of natural gas supply from Russia, the EU has to adopt the (long-proclaimed) coordinated energy policy strategy.