Dr. Christian Kimmich, MSc.

  • Energy, Environment, and Sustainable Economic Structures
Head of Research Group, Sprecher für Energie- und Umweltpolitik
+43 1 59991 213
christian.kimmich@ihs.ac.at

Resource, energy, environmental, and ecological economics; Human behaviour, expectations and institutions; Situation-centred networks / ecology of games;

Renewable energy, water, agriculture, forestry; infrastructures, cooperatives, commons

Bild Christian Kimmich
  • Christian Kimmich joined the IHS in 2020. Christian graduated in agricultural sciences (B.Sc.) and economics (M.Sc.) and received his PhD in resource economics from Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in 2012. He worked at the Leibniz Institute ATB Potsdam on bioenergy policies and food-fuel production trade-offs for the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament, and conducted his PhD research on electricity governance for irrigation and the water–energy–food nexus, with a focus on India. As a Postdoc at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL (ETH Zürich domain), he worked on institutional and behavioral determinants of wood supply chain organization for an agent-based model of the Swiss bioeconomy.

    Christian was visiting scholar at the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University Bloomington, the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior at University of California, Davis, and the TWI Lakelab of University of Konstanz, and in the Water Group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). He is affiliated with Masaryk University Brno and associated fellow of the Workshop in Institutional Analysis of Social-Ecological Systems (WINS) of HU Berlin, and IIASA, Laxenburg.

  • Peer-reviewed publications:

    Solé, J., Samsó, R., ..., Kimmich, C., ..., & Theofilidi, M. (2020). Modelling the renewable transition: Scenarios and pathways for a decarbonized future using pymedeas, a new open-source energy systems model. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 132, 110105.

    Kimmich, C., Gallagher, L., Kopainsky, B., Dubois, M., Sovann, C., Buth, C., & Bréthaut, C. (2019). Participatory Modeling Updates Expectations for Individuals and Groups, Catalyzing Behavior Change and Collective Action in Water‐Energy‐Food Nexus Governance. Earth's Future7(12), 1337-1352.

    Kimmich, C., & Tomas, S. V. (2019). Assessing action situation networks: a configurational perspective on water and energy governance in irrigation systems. Water Economics and Policy5(01), 1850005.

    Oberlack, C., Sietz, D., Bonanomi, E. B., ..., Kimmich, C., ..., & Villamayor-Tomas, S. (2019). Archetype analysis in sustainability research. Ecology and Society24(2).

    Müller, M., Kimmich, C., & Rommel, J. (2018). Farmers’ adoption of irrigation technologies: experimental evidence from a coordination game with positive network externalities in India. German Economic Review19(2), 119-139.

    Kimmich, C., & Fischbacher, U. (2016). Behavioral determinants of supply chain integration and coexistence. Journal of Forest Economics25, 55-77.

    Kimmich, C., & Sagebiel, J. (2016). Empowering irrigation: A game-theoretic approach to electricity utilization in Indian agriculture. Utilities Policy43, 174-185.

    Kimmich, C. (2013). Linking action situations: Coordination, conflicts, and evolution in electricity provision for irrigation in Andhra Pradesh, India. Ecological Economics90, 150-158.  

    A full list of publications is available at:

    Christian currently studies economic preconditions for and impacts of the low-carbon transformation and works on interdisciplinary network approaches to social-ecological systems research.

    Teaching at Masaryk University Brno, Czechia:

    • "Institutional and Resource Economics" (since Spring 2020)
    • "Social Ecological Economics" (Spring 2020)
    • "Governing the commons" (Autumn 2018)
    • "Economics and the Environment II" (Spring 2018)