Mathias Lund Larsen

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance

Biography

Mathias Larsen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, jointly between the China Initiative and the Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance. He is a political economist studying the role of the state in financing green transition. Previously, Mathias was a dual PhD fellow in international political economy at Copenhagen Business School and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He holds a dual Master’s degree in international business and politics from Copenhagen Business School and Rotterdam School of Management as well as a dual Master’s degree in international development from Sciences Po Paris and Peking University. He has worked for UN organs, Chinese think tanks, and is fluent in Chinese. His research has been published in Review of International Political Economy, Global Policy, Climate Policy, Regulation & Governance, Journal of International Development, and other leading journals in the field.

Research

Mathias Larsen studies the political economy of financing green transition, focusing on China and other countries outside the global North. He draws from over 100 interviews conducted in China, Vietnam, India, Ethiopia, and Brazil, to understand not only green finance in China but also China’s role in financing green transition across the global South. He explores how China challenges several assumptions of the literature 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. He is currently writing a book about what China can tell us about the ‘green state’ as a theory.

Publications

Larsen, M. (2023). Adding ‘origination’ to diffusion theory: contrasting the roles of China and the EU in green finance. Review of International Political Economy https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2023.2204532

Larsen, M., Voituriez, T. & Nedopil, C. (2023). Chinese overseas development funds: An assessment of their sustainability approaches. Journal of International Development. https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3778

Larsen, M. (2023). Bottom-up market-facilitation and top-down market-steering: comparing and conceptualizing green finance approaches in the EU and China. Asia Europe Journal https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-023-00663-z

Nedopil, C., & Larsen, M. (2023). Green Finance in China: System, Practice, and International Role. In The Routledge Handbook of Green Finance (pp. 280–299). Routledge. http://doi.org/10.4324/9781003345497-20

Larsen, M. (2022). Driving Global Convergence in Green Financial Policies: China as Policy Pioneer and the EU as Standard Setter. Global Policy, 13(3), 358–370. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13105

Nedopil, C., Larsen, M. , Yue, M., & Wang, Y. (2022). Prospects of the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) to catalyse infrastructure financing. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 33. https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.345

Larsen, M. , & Oehler, L. (2022). Clean at home, polluting abroad: The role of the Chinese financial system’s differential treatment of state-owned and private enterprises. Climate Policy, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2022.2040409