This is an advanced graduate workshop focused on quantitative interdisciplinary research analyzing global environmental policy. This class is responding to requests that I have heard for more advanced classes on environmental economics and policy that explore the frontier of research, serve as a convening/community space for advanced PhD students (2nd year and after) working on environmental policy/econ, and provide a space to explore research ideas and get some mentorship. Topics in prior years include: forests, biodiversity, poaching, air pollution, disasters, deep sea mining, fishing, food production, food trade, space, plastic, lead, pesticides, climate change assessment, fossil fuels, climate policy, geoengineering. This course will be a seminar format, where we read papers and discuss them. In a lot of cases, these might be recent advanced papers on a topic, and so we can puzzle through them together to try and figure out how they work. We will also spend some time reading papers/reviews on major topic areas where there isn't a lot of work, to try and figure out what kind of work people should be doing on those topics. This course is for PhD students who are doing or planning research (year 2+) and who want to explore and understand the frontier of research in this space. Students should have some graduate training in economics/statistics, and will probably get the most out of it if they have already taken Econ GEP 250, but that's not a hard prerequisite.
3 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
This is an advanced graduate workshop focused on quantitative interdisciplinary research analyzing global environmental policy. This class is responding to requests that I have heard for more advanced classes on environmental economics and policy that explore the frontier of research, serve as a convening/community space for advanced PhD students (2nd year and after) working on environmental policy/econ, and provide a space to explore research ideas and get some mentorship. Topics in prior years include: forests, biodiversity, poaching, air pollution, disasters, deep sea mining, fishing, food production, food trade, space, plastic, lead, pesticides, climate change assessment, fossil fuels, climate policy, geoengineering. This course will be a seminar format, where we read papers and discuss them. In a lot of cases, these might be recent advanced papers on a topic, and so we can puzzle through them together to try and figure out how they work. We will also spend some time reading papers/reviews on major topic areas where there isn't a lot of work, to try and figure out what kind of work people should be doing on those topics. This course is for PhD students who are doing or planning research (year 2+) and who want to explore and understand the frontier of research in this space. Students should have some graduate training in economics/statistics, and will probably get the most out of it if they have already taken Econ 250, but that's not a hard prerequisite.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.