Anna Hehenberger is a political economist with a training in heterodox economics and comparative political economy. She wrote her dissertation at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne on green growth, industrial transformation and decarbonisation in export-led growth models. She argues that existing accounts on decarbonisation in the field of political economy overlook or undervalue the role of firms and global markets play for explaining decarbonisation outcomes. Following from her findings, she emphasises that comparative political economy needs to engage meaningfully with (heterodox) economic theory. For her doctoral work, she visited Brown University in Providence and Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile, and conducted field work in Denmark (Copenhagen Business School) and Austria (University of Vienna). Before she entered the academic world, she worked as an economist at the progressive think tank Momentum Institut in Vienna and earned her masters in political economy from Kingston University London.

Anna's research focuses on the interactions between political and economic mechanisms that generate, accelerate, or prevent industrial transformation, global competitive dynamics, and decarbonization. Her work embeds industries and governments in national and global political economies and, from this perspective, she examines topics such as the political economy of different growth models, particularly with regard to their decarbonization, contradictions in the application of European regulations for fiscal and climate targets and their impact on national green industrial policy and climate policy, and the scope for peripheral nations to improve their supply chain positions vis-à-vis nations in the global center in the context of a multipolar world and competition for green and military superiority. Methodologically, she relies on comparative case studies and within- and cross-case process tracing.