Mathias Larsen

Mathias joined the Grantham Research Institute in September 2025. As a Senior Policy Fellow, Mathias leads the Institute’s work on China. The focus of his work is to assist policymakers in China in advancing the country’s green transition, as well as to assist policymakers in other countries in dealing with China’s role in a global green transition. This entails producing academic articles and policy reports as part of engagements with such policymakers in and around China. 

Background

Mathias is a political economist. Geographically, his work focuses on China and other countries outside the global North, including: Vietnam, India, Ethiopia, and Brazil. Topically, his work focuses on the role of the state in ensuring financing for a green transition, covering central banking, fiscal policy, development finance, and other tools related to industrial policy. He explores how China challenges common assumptions regarding the political and economic conditions required to use the state as a driver for green transition. He examines how interventionist state approaches are feasible in the global South, under different political preconditions, by using different policy tools, and while facing different challenges.

Mathias holds a double PhD in international political economy from Copenhagen Business School and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He also holds a double Master’s degree in international business and politics from Copenhagen Business School and Rotterdam School of Management, as well as a double Master’s degree in international development from Sciences Po Paris and Peking University. He previously worked as a Postdoc at Brown University, at China’s leading think tank on green finance, the International Institute of Green Finance, as well as at the UN in New York, Bangkok, and Nairobi. His research has been published both as policy reports and as articles in leading academic journals. 

Research interests

• The political economy of China’s green transition
• The roles of the state and private actors in financing sustainable development
• Global North-South relations in decarbonizing the global economy