How Is Economics Relevant to Environmental Policy?
December 9 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. (ET)

Valuing environmental protection is an emerging field of economics. This talk will describe how economists and policymakers can approach environmental policy with some recent examples. Professor Sheila Olmstead will discuss her research projects in the economics of protecting water quality and drinking water regulation and her research on the pricing of water resources. She will also talk about other current topics including carbon capture.

Join us at the Rockefeller Institute of Government at 411 State St., Albany, NY 12203, for this joint Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy and Rockefeller Institute event. This is an in-person event only. Please direct any questions to Rockefeller Institute Director of Operations and Fellow Heather Trela at [email protected].

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Presenter Bio

Sheila Olmstead

Sheila Olmstead

Professor of Economics and Environmental Policy, Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy

Sheila Olmstead studies the economic dimensions of environmental policies, especially those related to water quantity and quality. Her research has influenced academic thinking and regulatory policies on topics including climate change and water resource management, the effect of various pricing strategies on water conservation, economics and water quality considerations around shale gas development, measuring the economic value of improved water quality, and the effect of carbon capture and storage on local air pollution.

Professor Olmstead holds a dual appointment as a Cornell Atkinson Scholar. Prior to joining the Brooks School, she served as the Dean Rusk Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. She is a university fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) in Washington, DC, and a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. From 2016 to 2017, she served as the senior economist for energy and the environment at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

She is currently president-elect of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, where she has also served as vice president and a member of the board of directors, and she has served as editor of the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, associate editor of Water Resources Research, as co-editor of Environmental and Resource Economics, and book review editor of Water Economics and Policy.

Dr. Olmstead holds a PhD in public policy from Harvard University (2002), a master’s in public affairs from The University of Texas at Austin (1996), and a BA from the University of Virginia (1992).

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