Project

The BELIEFS project explores how firms’ expectations about the low-carbon transition shape investment decisions and influence the overall success of climate policy. Achieving net-zero targets, as mandated by the Paris Agreement and the European Climate Law, requires a massive redirection of capital toward low-carbon technologies and infrastructure. However, this shift depends critically on what firms believe about the future of climate policy, technological progress, and the economic costs of the transition. These beliefs are often heterogeneous, evolve over time, and are shaped by behavioural, social, and institutional factors. Misaligned or unstable expectations can slow down investment, increase uncertainty, and lead to disorderly or failed decarbonisation pathways.

BELIEFS started in September 2025 and will last five years. It is conducted by an international interdisciplinary research team at the Department of Economics of the University of Bologna, in collaboration with the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment, based in Milano.

BELIEFS aims to fill major knowledge gaps by developing an innovative analytical and modelling framework that treats expectations as dynamic, diverse, and interdependent. The project combines multiple methodologies: large-scale firm and policymaker surveys, behavioural laboratory experiments, empirical assessments of policy credibility, and advanced macroeconomic modelling. It will produce the first comprehensive empirical dataset on transition-related expectations and use this to simulate various decarbonisation scenarios up to 2060.

By integrating insights from climate economics, behavioural science, transition theory, and political economy, BELIEFS will identify the mechanisms through which expectations influence investment and policy dynamics. The project will also evaluate institutional strategies—such as credibility-enhancing commitment devices—to align expectations with climate goals. While rooted in the European context, the project’s findings will have broad relevance for other regions. BELIEFS ultimately seeks to support a more effective, credible, and orderly transition to a climate-neutral society.

For jobs and opportunities with the BELIEFS project, visit our Jobs page. 

Contacts: emanuele.campiglio@unibo.it.