Keynote Speaker
Arik Levinson is a Professor in the Economics Department of Georgetown University and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has served as a Senior Economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, as a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board, and as a co-Editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management and the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. Arik’s current research projects include a calculation of how the environmental consequences of American consumers’ choices have differed across income groups over time (“Environmental Engel Curves”); a study of the efficacy of California’s residential building energy codes; and an empirical assessment of degree to which misreported trade data subverts international trade and environmental policy.
Expert Panelists
Kenneth Gillingham is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale University, with appointments in the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Department of Economics, and School of Management, as well as a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is currently on leave as the Senior Economist for Energy and the Environment at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He is an energy and environmental economist drawing from the fields of applied microeconomics, behavioral economics, and industrial organization. He has published widely on consumer decisions in energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as on climate and energy policy. He was a Fulbright Fellow in New Zealand and has also worked at Resources for the Future, the California Air Resources Board, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He received a Ph.D. in Management Science & Engineering and Economics, as well as M.S. degrees in Statistics and Management Science & Engineering, from Stanford University. His undergraduate degree was an A.B. in Economics and Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College.
James Sallee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley and a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a public economist who studies topics related to energy, the environment and taxation. Much of his work evaluates policies aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions related to the use of automobiles. He completed his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Michigan in 2008.
Sofia Berto Villas-Boas is a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at U C Berkeley. Born in Portugal in 1971 she received her Ph.D. in Economics from U. C. Berkeley in May 2002. Her research interests include industrial organization, consumer behavior, food policy, and environmental regulation. Her recent empirical work has focused on the economics behind wholesale price discrimination banning legislation, contractual relationships along a vertical supply chain, and identifying the role of those contracts in explaining pass-through of cost shocks along the supply chain into retail prices that consumers face. She has published in the top economics and field journals such as Review of Economic Studies, Rand Journal of Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Marketing Science, Management Science, and Review of Economics and Statistics.