Marion Dumas

Marion is an Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute. Marion’s research focuses on barriers to radical green innovation that arise because of the strategic interactions and interdependencies between firms in industrial networks. One goal is to identify institutions that can facilitate faster and more radical technological change and thereby complement price incentives. In the next few years, Marion intends to contribute both theoretically and empirically to our understanding of green growth, in particular how the imperative of green growth interacts with the current trend towards increasing automation, which is reshaping labour markets and macroeconomic constraints.

To learn to contend with planetary boundaries in this century, Marion believes we must revisit our fundamental understanding of both economics and politics. Thus, in addition to searching for pragmatic and applicable policy insights, Marion is interested in developing the social science theory of sustainability. Some of the questions she would like to explore with others in the near future include 1) how do we move economic analysis beyond marginalist thinking, to take into account tipping points at multiple scales? 2) what are the strengths and weaknesses of different forms of capitalism to forge new growth paths for sustainability? 3) how can we institutionalize consideration of the long-term in governments and companies? 4) what allows a regulatory system to remain adaptive and experimental in order to effectively deal with change?

Background

Marion is a political economist, also trained as an environmental scientist, broadly interested in how to reform both economic and political policies and institutions to contend with planetary boundaries.

She has previously done research on how environmental legal regimes develop, how they empower green constituencies and become capable of shaping the exercise of political power in a durable way.

Marion holds a B.Sc in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from MIT, a M.Sc in Environmental Sciences from the ETH Zurich, and a PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University (during which she trained as an economist and political scientist). Before coming to LSE, Marion was an Omidyar postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute.

Research areas

Climate change governance, legislation and litigation

Working Papers

Green product innovation in industrial networks. with Eugenie Dugoua. In review Abstract

The Scalability, efficiency and complexity of universities and colleges: A new lens for assessing the higher educational system. with Chris Kempes, Ryan Taylor, Xiaofan Liang, Geoffrey West and Manfred Laubichler. In review Abstract

Developing an interdisciplinary science of sustainability: What can be learned from water systems? with Christa Brelsford and participants of the SFI Water systems workshop. In review Abstract

The autonomy of law from politics: Evidence from a network analysis of US environmental law. Abstract

Publications

1. Detecting ideology in judicial language. In Law as Data , edited by M. Livermore and D. Rockmore, SFI Press.

2. Asking about social circles improves election predictions. Mirta Galesic, W. Bruine de Bruin, M.Dumas , A. Kapteyn, J. E. Darling and E. Meijer Nature Human Behavior. 2.3 (2018): 187 Abstract

3. Taking the law to court: citizen suits and the legislative process. American Journal of Political Science, 61(4):944–957.Abstract

4. Computational data sciences and the regulation of banking and financial services. S. O’Halloran, M. Dumas, S. Maskey, G. McAllister, and D. K. Park. In From social data mining and analysis to prediction and community detection, pp. 179-209. Springer.

5. Political competition and renewable energy transitions over long time horizons: A dynamic approach. M. Dumas, J. Rising, J. Urpelainen. Ecological Economics, 124:175–184. Abstract

6. Modeling biogeochemical processes of phosphorus for global food supplyphosphorus papers M. Dumas, E. Frossard, R. W. Scholz. Chemosphere 74: 798–805. Abstract