Mailing address
Littauer 306
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA, 02138
Website
More Publications
Robert N. Stavins
Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program
Chair, Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Group
Chairman, Ph.D. Programs in Public Policy and Political Economy & Government
Co-Chair, Kennedy School-Harvard Business School Joint Degree Programs
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: (617) 495-1820
Fax: (617) 496-3783
Email: robert_stavins@harvard.edu
Website: http://www.stavins.com
Publications: http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~rstavins/cvweb.html
Experience
Robert N. Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, Chairman of the Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Group at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Director of Graduate Studies for the Doctoral Program in Public Policy and the Doctoral Program in Political Economy and Government. He is a University Fellow of Resources for the Future, the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, the Editor of the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, and a Member of: the Board of Directors of Resources for the Future, the Board of Academic Advisors of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, the Executive Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board, the Board of Directors of the Robert and Renée Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Editorial Boards of Resource and Energy Economics, Environmental Economics Abstracts, Environmental Law and Policy Abstracts, B.E. Journals of Economic Analysis & Policy, and Economic Issues. He is also an editor of the Journal of Wine Economics. He was formerly a member of the Editorial Board of Land Economics, The Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the Board of Directors of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, a member and Chair of the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board, a member of the Executive Committee of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, a Lead Author of the Second and Third Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and a contributing editor of Environment. . He holds a B.A. in philosophy from Northwestern University, an M.S. in agricultural economics from Cornell, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard.
Professor Stavins' research has focused on diverse areas of environmental economics and policy, including examinations of: policy instrument choice under uncertainty; competitiveness effects of regulation; design and implementation of market-based policy instruments; diffusion of pollution-control technologies; and depletion of forested wetlands. His current research includes analyses of: technology innovation; environmental benefit valuation; political economy of policy instrument choice; and econometric estimation of carbon sequestration costs. His research has appeared in the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Economic Literature, Science, Nature, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Ecology Law Quarterly, Journal of Regulatory Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Resource and Energy Economics, The Energy Journal, Energy Policy, Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, Explorations in Economic History, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, other scholarly and popular periodicals, and several books. He is the editor of the fifth edition of Economics of the Environment (W. W. Norton, 2005), co-editor of Environmental Protection and the Social Responsibility of Firms (Resources for the Future, 2005), editor of The Political Economy of Environmental Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2004), co-editor of the second edition of Public Policies for Environmental Protection (Resources for the Future, 2000), and the author of Environmental Economics and Public Policy: Selected Papers of Robert N. Stavins, 1988-1999 (Edward Elgar, 2000).
Professor Stavins directed Project 88, a bi-partisan effort co-chaired by former Senator Timothy Wirth and the late Senator John Heinz, to develop innovative approaches to environmental and resource problems. He continues to work closely with public officials on matters of national and international environmental policy. He has been a consultant to the National Academy of Sciences, the President's Council on Sustainable Development, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, and Interior, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Members of Congress, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Programme, state and national governments, and private foundations and firms.
Prior to coming to Harvard, Stavins was a staff economist at the Environmental Defense Fund; and before that, he managed irrigation development in the middle east, and spent four years working in agricultural extension in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. His wife, Joanna Stavins, is an Economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. They have two children, Daniel and Julia.
A complete list of working papers and publications is available at Professor Stavins' home page.
Assistant to Professor Stavins: Jason Chapman
Tel: 617-496-8054, Email: jason_chapman@harvard.edu
AP Photo
January 2012
The SO2 Allowance Trading System and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990: Reflections on Twenty Years of Policy Innovation
Report
By Gabriel Chan, Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Robert C. Stowe, Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program; Manager, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Richard Sweeney
The introduction of the U.S. SO2 allowance-trading program to address the threat of acid rain as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 is a landmark event in the history of environmental regulation. The program was a great success by almost all measures. Ironically, cap and trade seems especially well suited to addressing the problem of climate change, in that emitted greenhouse gases are evenly distributed throughout the world's atmosphere. Recent hostility toward cap and trade in debates about U.S. climate legislation may reflect the broader political environment of the climate debate more than the substantive merits of market-based regulation.
December 5, 2011
"A Wave of the Future: International Linkage of Carbon Markets"
Op-Ed, Outreach
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
"...[I]t remains true that cap-and-trade is still the most likely domestic policy approach for CO2 emissions reductions throughout the industrialised world, given the rather unattractive set of available alternative approaches. This makes it important to think about the possibility of linking these national and regional cap-and-trade systems in the future. Such linking occurs when the government that maintains one system allows regulated entities to use allowances or credits from other systems to meet compliance obligations."
November 29, 2011
"Climate Change: Efficiency and Equity"
Presentation
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Director Robert N. Stavins delivered a presentation titled "Climate Change: Efficiency and Equity," at The Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 29, 2011. The talk was one in the Geneva Environmental Dialogue Series of public keynote lectures that the Institute holds annually on a theme related to the international environment. The theme for the 2011–2012 term is "Justice and the Environment."
AP Photo
November 2011
The Promise and Problems of Pricing Carbon: Theory and Experience
Discussion Paper
By Joseph Aldy, Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Because of the global commons nature of climate change, international cooperation among nations will likely be necessary for meaningful action at the global level. At the same time, it will inevitably be up to the actions of sovereign nations to put in place policies that bring about meaningful reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases. Due to the ubiquity and diversity of emissions of greenhouse gases in most economies, as well as the variation in abatement costs among individual sources, conventional environmental policy approaches, such as uniform technology and performance standards, are unlikely to be sufficient to the task. Therefore, attention has increasingly turned to market-based instruments in the form of carbon-pricing mechanisms. We examine the opportunities and challenges associated with the major options for carbon pricing: carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, emission reduction credits, clean energy standards, and fossil fuel subsidy reductions.
AP Photo
November 2011
"The National Context of U.S. State Policies for a Global Commons Problem"
Policy Brief
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
In this policy brief, Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins focuses on how subnational policies will interact with a federal climate policy. It turns out that some of the interactions will be problematic, others will be benign, and still others could be positive. He also examines the role that could be played by subnational policies in the absence of a meaningful federal policy, with the conclusion that—like it or not—we may find that Sacramento, California comes to take the place of Washington as the center of national climate policy. This case study might provide insight for COP 17 delegates in designing the next steps toward a flexible international agreement.
October 2011
"The Promise and Problems of Pricing Carbon: Theory and Experience"
Discussion Paper
By Joseph Aldy, Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Market-approaches to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases lie at the heart of any cost-effective set of policies put forward in an international agreement—and will be considered at COP 17 in Durban in both the Kyoto and Long-term Cooperative Action discussions. Joseph Aldy and Robert Stavins "examine the opportunities and challenges associated with the major options for carbon pricing: carbon taxes, cap‐and‐trade, emission reduction credits, clean energy standards, and fossil fuel subsidy reductions."
September 16, 2011
"Beyond Kyoto: An Economic Perspective on International Climate Policy"
Presentation
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Director Robert N. Stavins delivered a featured address at the Institute of International and European Affairs, Ireland's leading think tank on international affairs, on September 16, 2011, in Dublin. As preparations for the next round of crucial climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, commence, Stavins discussed the prospects for the negotiations; the future of climate action beyond the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012; and the economics of climate change policy.
April 25, 2011
"An Opportunity for Timely Action: EPA's Transport Rule Passes the Test"
Op-Ed, The Huffington Post
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Richard Schmalensee
"Along with these health benefits, the largest shares of short-term improvements in employment and regional economies are likely to accrue to the regions that are most dependent on coal-fired power, as they invest in new pollution control equipment. Thus, while designed to help regions downwind of coal-fired power plants, the Transport Rule also offers substantial benefits to upwind states."
AP Photo
Enero–Marzo de 2011
"¿Qué sucedió (y por qué)? Una evaluación de los Acuerdos de Cancún"
Journal Article, Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica, issue 1, volume 11
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Las negociaciones internacionales sobre el clima que se llevaron a cabo en Cancún, México, han concluido, y a pesar de las fatídicas predicciones que dominaron las semanas y los meses previos a dicha reunión, se debe considerar que la xvi Conferencia de las Partes (COP-16) de la Convención Marco de Nacio — nes Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC) fue un éxito. Representa un modesto avance. No se debe esperar nada más de este proceso.
AP Photo
March/April 2011
"Curbing Carbon"
Op-Ed, Technology Review
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
"Throughout the U.S. economy, millions of decentralized decisions are made every day that contribute to the problem of climate change. A national carbon-pricing system—in the form of either carbon taxes or cap-and-trade—is the only policy that can significantly tilt them all in a climate-friendly direction. Given the ubiquity and diversity of energy use in a modern economy, conventional regulatory approaches simply cannot do the job."
