About

Robert O. Mendelsohn is the Edwin Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor Emeritus of Forest Policy, Professor Emeritus of Economics, and Professor Emeritus at Yale School of the Environment. His research has focused on the valuation of the environment, developing methods to value natural ecosystems such as coral reefs, old-growth forests, non-timber forest products, ecotourism, and outdoor recreation. He has also contributed to valuing pollution, including emissions of criteria pollutants and hazardous waste sites, and has recently worked on valuing the impacts of greenhouse gases, particularly climate change effects on agriculture, forests, water resources, energy, and coasts. His work integrates adaptation into impact assessment and extends to developing countries worldwide. Mendelsohn has been involved in studies of nonrenewable resources, forest management, and carbon sequestration in forests. His research aims to measure the impacts of climate change, with significant contributions including the invention of the Ricardian technique for analyzing climate sensitivity of agriculture and the development of models predicting timber supply and the impacts of land set-asides. He has also conducted empirical studies on the value of conserving ecosystems and forests, and has worked extensively on the impacts of air pollution, creating models to assess damages from stationary and all air pollution sources in the United States. Mendelsohn's teaching interests include the economics of natural resources and pollution, as well as environment valuation, aiming to teach students how to weigh costs and benefits of environmental management and understand the implications of policies and regulations.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Natural resource economics
• Economics
• Geography
• Agricultural economics

Selected publications

• Climate-Driven Species Substitution in Mongolian Cattle Herds: Adaptation Between Yaks and Mongolian Cows

  Climate Change Economics · 2026-04-22

  articleSenior author

  Climate has shaped pastoral production systems worldwide, influencing which livestock animals herders choose to raise. While most research has focused on genus choice—such as from cattle to goats to chickens—less attention has been paid to species choice within a single genus. This study uses a representative panel from Mongolia to examine climate-sensitive substitution between two closely related cattle species: cold-adapted yaks (Bos grunniens) and more heat-tolerant Mongolian cattle (Bos taurus). Both OLS and fractional logit models confirm that the yak share of all cattle is sensitive to seasonal temperature and precipitation. Fixed-effects panel regressions of yak and Mongolian cow populations reveal that warmer winter and spring temperatures reduce yak populations but warmer winters increase Mongolian cattle populations. Summer warming is detrimental to Mongolian cattle but not yaks. Overall warming leads to losses for yaks (-439 head/°C) and Mongolian cattle (-256 head/°C), signaling that substitution may buffer but not fully offset warming. Increased precipitation decreases yak populations -1450 head/cm/mo but increases Mongolian cattle 5364 head/cm/mo largely because of the harmful winter effects of snow on yaks. These results highlight how subtle species changes within a genus can act as a climate adaptation even though they may not always prevent the harmful long-term impacts of warming.

  PublisherDOI

• Global land and carbon consequences of mass timber products

  Nature Communications · 2025-05-26 · 14 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Mass timber products can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing steel and cement. However, the increase in wood demand raises wood prices, and the environmental consequences of these market changes are unclear. Here we investigate the global carbon and land use impacts of adopting mass timber products, focusing on cross-laminated timber as a case study. Our results show that higher wood prices reduce the production of traditional wood products but expand productive forestland by 30.7–36.5 million hectares from 2020 to 2100 and lead to more intensive forest management. If the cumulative global cross-laminated timber production reaches 3.6 to 9.6 billion m 3 by 2100, long-term carbon storage can increase by 20.3–25.2 GtCO 2 e, primarily in forests (16.1–17.7 GtCO 2 e) and in cross-laminated timber panels (4.1–8.1 GtCO 2 e). Including emission reductions from steel, cement, and traditional wood products, the net reduction of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions will be 25.6–39.0 GtCO 2 e.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Adapting to Sea Level Rise and Storms

  Scientific Reports · 2025-11-19

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  It is well known that sea level rise (SLR) will force retreat along rural coastlines but that cities will need to protect their coasts. But how exactly should seawalls, flood insurance, and retreat be used over time to minimize the overall cost of coastal flooding to society? This paper examines dynamic coastal adaptation in six cities along the eastern seaboard of the United States through 2180. We argue that seawalls should be designed to minimize the sum of seawall costs and expected residual flood damage. Flood insurance for residual damage can address risk aversion. The results reveal that only areas with high expected damage per kilometer of coastline require walls. Only a few segments of most cities need a wall now. The optimal wall height is about 1-2 m. SLR will force more urban seawalls to be built over the next 100 years. The faster SLR rises, the sooner they will need to be built.

  PublisherDOI

• Assessing the impact of natural land on farmland value in Mediterranean EU countries

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Climate change and fractional outcomes: A long-run panel study of U.S. crop failure rates and pasture rates

  Journal of Environmental Economics and Management · 2025-01-24 · 3 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Assessing the impact of natural land on farmland value in Mediterranean EU countries

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Assessing the costs of human‒wildlife conflict in the Khata wildlife corridor, Nepal

  European Journal of Wildlife Research · 2025-05-13 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• What is the value of agrobiodiversity in southern Europe?

  European Review of Agricultural Economics · 2024-12-01 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract This study explores how agrobiodiversity at both local and regional scales impacts farmland value across five Mediterranean countries in the EU. Previous literature has primarily addressed on-farm biodiversity and its effects on productivity and risk mitigation, yet the potential externalities of agrobiodiversity across neighboring farms remain underexplored. Using a cross-sectional Ricardian approach, we estimate the effects of agrobiodiversity, measured in terms of both crop richness and evenness, on long-term agricultural productivity. Our findings show significant non-linear relationships and substitution effects between local and regional agrobiodiversity, underscoring the need for regionally tailored biodiversity policies.

  PublisherDOI

• INTRODUCTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON FINANCIAL MARKETS

  Climate Change Economics · 2024-11-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• An integrated assessment of the impact of agrobiodiversity on the economy of the Euro-Mediterranean region

  Ecological Economics · 2024-01-30 · 9 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In the past decades, agricultural landscapes have simplified with crop specialization and the reduction of seminatural covers leading to a decline of biodiversity and (biodiversity-driven) ecosystem services. This study measures the impact of landscape agrobiodiversity on the economy of southern Europe. The analysis relies on regression analyses to measure the effect of agrobiodiversity on the value added of farms. A regionalized Computable General Equilibrium model is then used to examine how these results affect the economy at large. The results show that increasing local richness and regional evenness tends to have positive impacts on the agricultural sector and GDP whereas increasing local evenness and regional richness tends to be harmful to the agricultural sector and GDP. The results also suggest that some regions of southern Europe are better off with more agrobiodiversity whereas other regions are better off with less. A targeted program may be better than a uniform policy across all of southern Europe.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ariel Dinar

  University of California, Riverside

  96 shared

• Emanuele Massetti

  54 shared

• Jinxia Wang

  46 shared

• Jikun Huang

  Peking University

  44 shared

• Brent Sohngen

  38 shared

• Scott Rozelle

  Stanford University

  38 shared

• Lijuan Zhang

  National Institute for Parasitic Diseases

  37 shared

• Pradeep Kurukulasuriya

  United Nations Development Programme

  36 shared

Education

• PhD, Economics

  Yale University

  1978

• BA, Economics

  Harvard College

  1973

Awards & honors

• Fellow of Ezra Stiles College