Theocharis Grigoriadis is an Associate Professor of Economics and East European Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, a Candidate of Science in Economics from Saint Petersburg State University, an MA in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University, as well as an LLM and an LLB from the University of Athens. He has been working in the fields of economic history, political economy, international economics, and comparative economics with a focus on Eastern Europe and the Middle East. His papers have been published in Energy Economics, Economic Systems, Comparative Economic Studies, Journal of International Money & Finance, Economics Letters, Constitutional Political Economy, Journal of Policy Modeling, Journal of International Development, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Empirica, Rationality & Society, Iran & the Caucasus, and Texas International Law Journal. Theocharis published a monograph titled Aid in Transition: EU Development Cooperation with Russia & Eurasia with Springer. His second monograph titled Religion & Comparative Development: The Genesis of Democracy & Dictatorship was published with Edward Elgar in May 2018.

Project: "German-style Energy Transitions: Wind Energy & Development in Turkey"

In the project “German-style Energy Transitions: Wind Energy & Development in Turkey,” I propose a multifaceted and interdisciplinary analysis of energy transitions and socio-economic performance in Turkey. Wind energy has been a central component of the transformation of Turkey’s electrical power sector and has been developed within the regulatory framework of the YEKA (Renewable Energy Resource Areas) auction model. Using a difference-in-difference empirical design, I evaluate the socio-economic effects of the two YEKA tenders on wind energy in different regions of Turkey. First, I measure the effects of the first YEKA tender won by the German-Turkish consortium Siemens-Türkerler-Kalyon, which implemented Turkey’s first wind energy transition in the regions of Thrace, Ankara, and central Turkey. Second, I measure the effects of the second YEKA tender that was won by Enerjisa, a Turkish company of which 50 percent is owned by German energy leader E.ON, and Enercon, a German company specializing in wind energy infrastructure. The regional focus of the second YEKA tender covers primarily the Aegean as well as Marmara districts of Turkey. In addition to causal inference methods, I introduce matching and advanced simulation techniques to evaluate the environmental effects of windmill location given available wind mapping data. Analyzed socio-economic outcomes include regional and local income, overall life expectancy, infant mortality rates, school attendance, and the share of secondary education graduates.