Environmental policy has long relied on restoration cost methodologies to value ecological damage. In the United States, Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) under CERCLA and the Oil Pollution Act quantifies liability as the cost of restoring injured ecosystems to baseline. The EU Environmental Liability Directive (2004/35/EC) mandates primary, complementary, and compensatory remediation. Similar frameworks operate in Switzerland (Ecofactor method), Germany (Eingriffsregelung), the Netherlands (nitrogen deposition compensation), and the United Kingdom (Biodiversity Net Gain). These regimes share a core logic: environmental harm is valued not by estimating foregone welfare, but by pricing the physical restoration of the damaged resource.

The mainstream approach to environmental valuation follows cost-benefit logic: damages are estimated as foregone welfare, discounted to present value, and weighed against abatement costs. In corporate finance, however, this present-value-of-income method is routinely complemented by replacement cost valuation, which asks what it would cost to rebuild an asset to its original specification. Replacement cost is especially informative under deep uncertainty, because it anchors valuation in observable physical costs rather than contested welfare assumptions. The planetary boundaries framework reinforces this logic: once a biophysical threshold is defined, the policy question shifts from optimizing damage to pricing the return to a safe operating space. Environmental policy has developed analogous restoration-based frameworks, yet the six regimes described above have received limited systematic comparison with each other or with damage-based alternatives. The gap is most visible in climate economics, where the Social Cost of Carbon has produced a 25-fold spread in estimates, while restoration-cost valuation has not been formally assessed as a complement.

In this context, we offer a master’s thesis project conducting a comparative policy analysis of restoration cost methodologies, evaluating their real-world effectiveness and extracting the design principles that determine success. The thesis will:

• Map and compare restoration cost frameworks across six jurisdictions (US NRDA, EU ELD, Swiss Ecofactor, German Eingriffsregelung, Netherlands nitrogen compensation, UK Biodiversity Net Gain) along dimensions including valuation approach, cost basis, temporal treatment, and enforcement

• Evaluate policy effectiveness by assessing whether and how each framework achieves ecological restoration relative to its stated baseline, including cost outcomes, enforcement experience, and documented ecological results

• Extract general design principles that determine whether a restoration cost framework functions well, such as enforceable baselines, measurable endpoints, available technologies, and cost observability

• Develop a transferability framework specifying the conditions under which restoration-cost valuation can be extended to new environmental domains, and when it complements or outperforms damage-based valuation

Relevant literature

• Pindyck, R. S. (2013). Climate change policy: What do the models tell us? Journal of Economic Literature, 51(3), 860–872.

• Weitzman, M. L. (2009). On modeling and interpreting the economics of catastrophic climate change. Review of Economics and Statistics, 91(1), 1–19.

• Sureth, M. et al. (2023). A welfare economic approach to planetary boundaries. Journal of Economics and Statistics, 243(5), 477–542.

• Boyd, J. & Banzhaf, S. (2007). What are ecosystem services? The need for standardized environmental accounting units. Ecological Economics, 63(2–3), 616–626.

• EU Directive 2004/35/CE on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage.

• Richardson, K. et al. (2023). Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Science Advances, 9(37), eadh2458.

Requirements

• Keen interest in environmental policy, environmental and ecological economics

• Background in economics, public policy, law, environmental sciences, or other relevant disciplines

• Some experience in qualitative research methods (e.g. comparative case studies, policy analysis), as well as a strong willingness for further self-study, are required

Setup

• You will be supervised by Patrick Zeitinger and Prof. Florian Egli

• Access to an interdisciplinary team with extensive expertise in climate and energy policy and state-of-the-art research methods

• Involvement in research with direct links to policymakers and policy impact

• An exciting community at the School of Social Sciences and Technology

• Close collaboration with the TUM Think Tank

• Access to a lovely office space right in the heart of Munich

How to apply

Please send your motivation for the topic (max. 1 page), your CV and your up-to-date transcript of records to: patrick.zeitinger@tum.de as a single PDF file. 

We evaluate applications on a rolling basis starting mid-August 2026 until the position is filled. The start date is as soon as possible.

Biodiversity loss is a major environmental and economic risk (Dasgupta, 2021). In political science, issue salience (i.e the importance the public attaches to a policy problem) is understood as one of the central mechanisms through which such risks translate into agenda-setting, political priority and policy change (Downs, 1972; Kingdon, 1984). To date, existing research on how the public perceives biodiversity loss typically focuses on (a) aggregate biodiversity discourse, showing that biodiversity features far less prominently than climate change (Legagneux et al., 2018), (b) comparative analyses across species, consistently finding a concentration of public attention on charismatic taxa (Troudet et al., 2017), or (c) public perceptions of individual biodiversity crises such as insect decline (Felgentreff et al., 2023). What is missing, however, is a quantified, systematic understanding of how urgently biodiversity loss is perceived across ecosystems and species, and of the drivers and solutions associated with them.

In this context, we offer a master's thesis project on the salience of biodiversity loss across ecosystems and species, centred on Germany with the option of extending the analysis to other European countries, that will focus on:

1. Reviewing the literature on salience and biodiversity decline, also drawing on agenda-setting, framing and conservation culturomics

2. Identifying suitable data sources, e.g. news media, online search, social media

3. Measuring and comparing salience across ecosystems and species (and, where relevant, the drivers and solutions associated with them) using quantitative, computational and/or qualitative methods

4. Interpreting the observed patterns against documented ecological risk (e.g. national and European Red Lists) 

The approach will be developed jointly with the successful candidate.

Relevant literature

• Legagneux, P., et al. (2018). Our house is burning: discrepancy in climate change vs. biodiversity coverage in the media as compared to scientific literature. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 5, 175. 

• Troudet, J., Grandcolas, P., Blin, A., Vignes-Lebbe, R., & Legendre, F. (2017). Taxonomic bias in biodiversity data and societal preferences. Scientific Reports, 7, 9132. 

• Felgentreff, E., et al. (2023). From science to society to practice? Public reactions to the insect crisis in Germany. People and Nature. 

• Downs, A. (1972). Up and down with ecology: the “issue-attention cycle”. The Public Interest, 28, 38–50.

• Ladle, R. J., et al. (2019). A culturomics approach to quantifying the salience of species on the global internet. People and Nature. 

• Correia, R. A., et al. (2021). Using Wikipedia to measure public interest in biodiversity and conservation. Conservation Biology, 35(2), 412–423.

Requirements

• Keen interest in public policy and biodiversity conservation 

• Background in political science, public policy, environmental sciences or other relevant disciplines

• Experience in empirical social science methods (e.g. content analysis, computational text analysis, or the quantitative analysis of digital trace data) or a strong willingness for self-study, are required

• Fluency in English is essential; German language skills are an advantage

Setup

• You will be supervised by Linda Widdel and Prof. Florian Egli

• Access to an interdisciplinary team with extensive expertise in climate and energy policy and state-of-the-art research methods

• Involvement in research with direct links to policymakers and policy impact

• An exciting community at the School of Social Sciences and Technology

• Close collaboration with the TUM Think Tank

• Access to a lovely office space right in the heart of Munich

How to apply

Please send your motivation for the topic (max. 1 page), your CV and your up-to-date transcript of records to: linda.widdel@tum.deas a single PDF file. 

We evaluate applications on a rolling basis starting in August 2026 and until the position is filled. The start date is as soon as possible.

Climate Finance

6 ECTS

Climate change is one of the critical challenges of this century. In this course, students will learn about the role of finance for the low carbon transition in developing as well as industrialized countries. We will discuss existing policies, their effectiveness and the underlying political economy challenges to implement them.

Sustainability and Development: Policies, Impacts and Research Methods

3 ECTS

Developing countries face both opportunities and challenges in sustainable transitions. For instance, while they offer potential for carbon reduction, more resource equity, and economic diversification, they may also induce short-term costs, be limited by technological capabilities, and require policy and behavior change. This course focuses on the methods and tools needed to evaluate the impact of policies aimed at fostering such change in developing countries, as well as the broader effects these transitions have on people, economies, and the environment.

Designing Public Policy – Special Issue: Nature’s Design Lab: Crafting Policies and Change in the Wild

with Prof. Annette Diefenthaler

2 ECTS

Our current reality is shaped by complex challenges that require us to fundamentally rethink our relationship with the planet we live on. In this module, you will embark on a learning experience beyond the confines of the classroom: Students from diverse disciplines are invited to an immersive journey into nature, design, and innovation, fostering an environment of creative thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability

6 ECTS (only for PhD and Postdocs)

The course is part of a global initiative led by Harvard University to educate the next generation of climate finance scholars. It covers a range of topics, from the integration of climate change impacts into economic and financial theories, sustainable investment, climate-related risk assessment, as well as the economic and financial dynamics of corporations, households, and financial institutions in the context of decarbonization. The course runs weekly from February 4 to April 29, 2025, for more information please visit TUMOnline. To apply, please send an email with subject: “Application to FECS class 2025” to clemens.lehofer@tum.de. The email should contain the title of your PhD or main research project and a 200-word motivation. Deadline for applications is 9 January 2025.

Climate Finance

6 ECTS

Climate change is one of the critical challenges of this century. In this course, students will learn about the role of finance for the low carbon transition in developing as well as industrialized countries. We will discuss existing policies, their effectiveness and the underlying political economy challenges to implement them.

Sustainability and Development: Policies, Impacts and Research Methods

3 ECTS

Developing countries face both opportunities and challenges in sustainable transitions. For instance, while they offer potential for carbon reduction, more resource equity, and economic diversification, they may also induce short-term costs, be limited by technological capabilities, and require policy and behavior change. This course focuses on the methods and tools needed to evaluate the impact of policies aimed at fostering such change in developing countries, as well as the broader effects these transitions have on people, economies, and the environment.

Designing Public Policy – Special Issue: Nature’s Design Lab: Crafting Policies and Change in the Wild

with Prof. Annette Diefenthaler & Martin Wählisch (United Nations)

2 ECTS

Our current reality is shaped by complex challenges that require us to fundamentally rethink our relationship with the planet we live on. In this module, you will embark on a learning experience beyond the confines of the classroom: Students from diverse disciplines are invited to an immersive journey into nature, design, and innovation, fostering an environment of creative thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability

6 ECTS (only for PhD and Postdocs)

The course is part of a global initiative led by Harvard University to educate the next generation of climate finance scholars. It covers a range of topics, from the integration of climate change impacts into economic and financial theories, sustainable investment, climate-related risk assessment, as well as the economic and financial dynamics of corporations, households, and financial institutions in the context of decarbonization. The course runs weekly from February 4 to April 29, 2025, for more information please visit TUMOnline.

To apply, please send an email with subject: “Application to FECS class 2025” to clemens.lehofer@tum.de. The email should contain the title of your PhD or main research project and a 200-word motivation. Deadline for applications is 9 January 2025.