In my podcast series, “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program,” I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with a number of former Harvard PhD students who have gone on to wonderful careers; and my most recent podcast was no exception, because I was joined by Karen Fisher-Vanden, Distinguished Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics and Public Policy at Pennsylvania State University, and President of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. You can listen to our complete conversation here.
Fisher-Vanden earned a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.A. in Economics at the University of California, Davis, a M.S. in Management Science at UCLA Anderson School of Management, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy at Harvard. She spent time working at the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Los Angeles, California and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington D.C. before settling into her academic career, initially at Dartmouth College and now at Penn State.
When I ask Karen why she moved to Penn State (having previously received tenure at Dartmouth), she responds, “Penn State is known for its work on climate. I was really excited about the opportunity to come here and build a large research program in integrated assessment modeling and economy-wide modeling for climate, not only climate policy, but climate impacts and adaptation, and I was able to do that here.”
Much of her research has involved economy-wide models designed to decipher the economic feedbacks that drive climate impacts and climate policy, including a 2018 paper she co-authored with Qin Fan and Allen Klaiber, published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental Research Economists.
“What I really like about this paper is it shows how econometrics and structural econometrics can be combined with economy-wide modeling to capture some important general equilibrium feedbacks that are crucial for getting the story [right]… There had been [several] papers that were using these residential sorting models, which is a structural econometric model, to analyze the effects of climate change on household location choice. And they basically were finding that climate change would create this large shift in population from southern states in the U.S. to the northern states,” she explains. “However, if you take into account equilibrium effects, you know that if everybody moves, north wages fall, housing prices increase. And these models were not taking that into account.”
‘[We] found that even though you do get some movement north, it significantly is dampened. And that seems to make sense if you start to look at what’s happening in areas that you see these people moving to high climate risk states like Arizona, Texas, Florida, because the cost of living is a lot cheaper. We’re starting to already see that type of thing [happening].”
Karen has regularly served on National Academies panels, EPA review panels, the EPA Science Advisory Board, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I ask her whether those stints have been a diversion – albeit perhaps a worthwhile diversion – from her research and teaching, or has such service actually contributed to her research and/or teaching?
She responds that serving as a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group III, in 2014, assessing literature on the scientific, technological, environmental, economic, and social aspects of mitigation of climate change since 2007, helped guide her current work as director of Penn State’s Program on Coupled Human and Earth Systems.
“Just to know how the IPCC works…has been very valuable not only in teaching… A lot of times being involved in these things allows you to identify new areas of research, and that’s helped me with some recent direction of my research program,” she remarks. She notes that her students glean a deeper understanding of how to develop public policies that will have a positive impact.
“Why you’re taking my course is you have to understand the economic incentives to change behavior, and you need some sort of training in economics to be able to do this. You need to be able to talk like an economist in terms of talking to policymakers,” she states. “You want to harness [their passion], but you want to give them the tools to be able to be more effective in trying to argue their case and make a difference.”
For this and much more, please listen to my podcast conversation with Karen Fisher-Vanden, the 63rd episode over the past five years of the Environmental Insights series, with future episodes scheduled to drop each month. You can find a transcript of our conversation at the website of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Previous episodes have featured conversations with:
- Gina McCarthy, former Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Nick Stern of the London School of Economics discussing his career, British politics, and efforts to combat climate change
- Andrei Marcu, founder and executive director of the European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition
- Paul Watkinson, Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- Jos Delbeke, professor at the European University Institute in Florence and at the KU Leuven in Belgium, and formerly Director-General of the European Commission’s DG Climate Action
- David Keith, professor at Harvard and a leading authority on geoengineering
- Joe Aldy, professor of the practice of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, with considerable experience working on climate change policy issues in the U.S. government
- Scott Barrett, professor of natural resource economics at Columbia University, and an authority on infectious disease policy
- Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, and founding co-director of the Business and Environment Initiative at Harvard Business School.
- Sue Biniaz, who was the lead climate lawyer and a lead climate negotiator for the United States from 1989 until early 2017.
- Richard Schmalensee, the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Management, and Professor of Economics Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Kelley Kizier, Associate Vice President for International Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund.
- David Hone, Chief Climate Change Adviser, Shell International.
- Vicky Bailey, 30 years of experience in corporate and government positions in the energy sector.
- David Victor, professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego.
- Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk at the The New York Times.
- Coral Davenport, who covers energy and environmental policy for The New York Times from Washington.
- Spencer Dale, BP Group Chief Economist.
- Richard Revesz, professor at the NYU School of Law.
- Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environment and Law at Yale University.
- William Hogan, Raymond Plank Research Professor of Global Energy Policy at Harvard.
- Jody Freeman, Archibald Cox Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
- John Graham, Dean Emeritus, Paul O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University.
- Gernot Wagner, Clinical Associate Professor at New York University.
- John Holdren, Research Professor, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Larry Goulder, Shuzo Nishihara Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, Stanford University.
- Suzi Kerr, Chief Economist, Environmental Defense Fund.
- Sheila Olmstead, Professor of Public Affairs, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin.
- Robert Pindyck, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Professor of Economics and Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management.
- Gilbert Metcalf, Professor of Economics, Tufts University.
- Navroz Dubash, Professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
- Paul Joskow, Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics emeritus, MIT.
- Maureen Cropper, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland.
- Orley Ashenfelter, the Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics, Princeton University.
- Jonathan Wiener, the William and Thomas Perkins Professor of Law, Duke Law School.
- Lori Bennear, the Juli Plant Grainger Associate Professor of Energy Economics and Policy, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University.
- Daniel Yergin, founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and now Vice Chair of S&P Global.
- Jeffrey Holmstead, who leads the Environmental Strategies Group at Bracewell in Washington, DC.
- Daniel Jacob, Vasco McCoy Family Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry & Environmental Engineering at Harvard.
- Michael Greenstone, Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University of Chicago.
- Billy Pizer, Vice President for Research & Policy Engagement, Resources for the Future.
- Daniel Bodansky, Regents’ Professor, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University.
- Catherine Wolfram, Cora Jane Flood Professor of Business Administration, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, currently on leave at the Harvard Kennedy School.
- James Stock, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University.
- Mary Nichols, long-time leader in California, U.S., and international climate change policy.
- Geoffrey Heal, Donald Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise, Columbia Business School.
- Kathleen Segerson, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Connecticut.
- Meredith Fowlie, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, U.C. Berkeley.
- Karen Palmer, Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future.
- Severin Borenstein, Professor of the Graduate School, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
- Michael Toffel, Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management and Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School.
- Emma Rothschild, Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History, Harvard University.
- Nathaniel Keohane, President, C2ES.
- Amy Harder, Executive Editor, Cypher News.
- Richard Zeckhauser, Frank Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Kimberly (Kim) Clausing, School of Law, University of California at Los Angeles
- Hunt Allcott, Professor of Global Environmental Policy, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
- Meghan O’Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School.
- Robert Lawrence, Albert Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Charles Taylor, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Wolfram Schlenker, Ray Goldberg Professor of the Global Food System, Harvard Kennedy School.
“Environmental Insights” is hosted on SoundCloud, and is also available on iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
