Laura Taylor

About

Dr. Laura Taylor is a Professor in the School of Economics at Georgia Tech and serves as the Director of the Energy Policy and Innovation Center (EPIcenter). She has extensive experience in policy evaluation and the valuation of natural resources and the environment. Her research includes evaluating the impact of renewable energy infrastructure on local communities, assessing the health outcomes related to air pollution exposures, improving benefits estimation for policies aimed at reducing human mortality, examining household responses to water conservation policies, and evaluating the benefits of hazardous waste site cleanup. Her work has been funded by agencies such as the US EPA, USDA, US Department of Interior, and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Taylor has held leadership roles including chairing the School of Economics from 2018 to 2024, and she has been involved in numerous advisory positions at the state and federal levels. She is a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Vice President of the Southern Economic Association, and a member of the Board of Directors for Resources for the Future. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, an M.A. from Duke University, and a B.S. from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Her teaching interests encompass Environmental Economics and Microeconomics, and her research fields focus on environmental economics, energy economics, and energy, climate,…

Research topics

• Economics
• Business
• Environmental science
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Microeconomics
• Labour economics
• Mathematics
• Econometrics

Selected publications

• Policy Brief—What’s in a Name? A Search for Alternatives to “VSL”

  Review of Environmental Economics and Policy · 2018-11-16 · 30 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Benefit-cost analyses of environmental, health, and safety regulations often rely on an estimate of the value of statistical life (VSL) to calculate the aggregate benefits of reducing human mortality risk. The VSL represents the marginal rate of substitution between mortality risk and money. Although this concept is well-understood by economists, it is viewed by many non-economists as confusing technical jargon that borders on the immoral. Based on focus groups and a quantitative ranking exercis…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Utility-Scale Solar Farms and Agricultural Land Values

  Land Economics · 2022 · 21 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Property value models are used to examine how utility-scale, ground-mount solar farms affect nearby agricultural land values. Results indicate that solar farms do not have direct positive or negative spillover effects on nearby agricultural land values. However, results also suggest that solar farm construction may indirectly affect agricultural land values by signaling the land’s suitability for future solar development. Specifically, results indicate that proximity of agricultural land to elec…

  PublisherDOI

• Using Revealed Preference Methods to Estimate the Value of Reduced Mortality Risk: Best Practice Recommendations for the Hedonic Wage Model

  Review of Environmental Economics and Policy · 2020 · 18 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  The hedonic wage model provides a key input into benefit–cost analyses of public policies that are aimed at reducing mortality risks: an estimate of the value of reduced mortality risk (VRMR), also known as the value of a statistical life. Because a large majority of the benefits associated with policies that improve air quality stem from mortality risk reductions, estimates of the VRMR play an exceptionally important role. The use of VRMR estimates from hedonic wage studies in benefit–cost anal…

  PublisherDOI

• Translating a Global Emission-Reduction Framework for Subnational Climate Action: A Case Study from the State of Georgia

  Environmental Management · 2021 · 16 citations

  Subnational entities are recognizing the need to systematically examine options for reducing their carbon footprints. However, few robust and comprehensive analyses are available that lay out how US states and regions can most effectively contribute. This paper describes an approach developed for Georgia-a state in the southeastern United States called "Drawdown Georgia", our research involves (1) understanding Georgia's baseline carbon footprint and trends, (2) identifying the universe of Georg…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bidding against the wind: A choice experiment in green energy, green jobs and offshore views in North Carolina, USA

  Journal of Environmental Management · 2024-01-01 · 6 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Roger H. von Haefen

  North Carolina State University

  11 shared

• Casey J. Wichman

  Resources For The Future

  11 shared

• Kevin Boyle

  Northwestern University

  7 shared

• Daniel J. Phaneuf

  Agricultural & Applied Economics Association

  6 shared

• Jonathan Lee

  6 shared

• Ronald G. Cummings

  5 shared

• John B. Braden

  5 shared

• Xiangping Liu

  Changchun University

  4 shared

Labs

• Laura Taylor LabPI

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Econ…

Similar researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology

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