Maximilian Auffhammer

About

Maximilian Auffhammer is the Avice M. Saint Distinguished Professor and Regional Associate Dean at the Rausser College of Natural Resources, within the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. He received his B.S. in Environmental Science and his M.S. in Environmental and Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and earned his Ph.D. in Economics from UC San Diego. Since joining UC Berkeley in 2003, his research has focused on environmental and resource economics, energy economics, and applied econometrics. Auffhammer has contributed significantly to understanding the economic impacts of climate change, the effects of environmental policies, and the dynamics of energy consumption and emissions. His work has been published in numerous prestigious academic journals, and he has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Energy and Environmental Economics group, a Humboldt Fellow, and has received multiple awards for his teaching and mentoring, including the Cheit Teaching Award and the Sarlo Distinguished Mentoring Award. His research aims to quantify economic damages from climate change, analyze the external costs of vehicles, and evaluate policy impacts on air quality and energy use, contributing to the understanding of how climate and environmental policies can be designed to make the world a better, more…

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Engineering
• Computer Science
• Natural resource economics
• Ecology
• Economics
• Business
• Aeronautics
• Environmental health
• Environmental planning

Selected publications

• Climate Adaptive Response Estimation: Short and long run impacts of climate change on residential electricity and natural gas consumption

  Journal of Environmental Economics and Management · 2022 · 117 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  This paper proposes a simple two-step estimation method (Climate Adaptive Response Estimation - CARE) to estimate sectoral climate damage functions, which account for long-run adaptation. The paper applies this method in the context of residential electricity and natural gas demand for the world’s fifth largest economy — California. The advantage of the proposed method is that it only requires detailed information on intensive margin behavior, yet does not require explicit knowledge of the exten…

  PublisherDOI

• Energy consumption and charging load profiles from long-haul truck electrification in the United States

  Environmental Research Infrastructure and Sustainability · 2021-07-28 · 40 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract The urgent need to decarbonize the transportation sector combined with falling battery prices has spurred industry and policy interest in long-haul truck electrification. The charging behavior and resulting loads from electrified long-haul freight trucks are crucial for the smooth operation of the electric grid and have far-reaching environmental impacts (e.g., greenhouse gas and other air pollutant emissions). However, the aggregate energy impact of a fleetwide shift to electrified lon…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Impact of truck electrification on air pollution disparities in the United States

  Nature Sustainability · 2025-02-11 · 25 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Electrifying heavy-duty trucks reduces on-road diesel emissions but shifts the burden of supplying energy to power-generation facilities. The combined effect of Inflation Reduction Act investments in grid decarbonization and truck electrification will alter the magnitude and distribution of air pollution burdens across the United States. These investments are intended to facilitate a just energy transition, with 40% of the benefits flowing to disadvantaged communities per the Justice40…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The visual effect of wind turbines on property values is small and diminishing in space and time

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2024-03-18 · 23 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Renewable power generation is the key to decarbonizing the electricity system. Wind power is the fastest-growing renewable source of electricity in the United States. However, expanding wind capacity often faces local opposition, partly due to a perceived visual disamenity from large wind turbines. Here, we provide a US-wide assessment of the externality costs of wind power generation through the visibility impact on property values. To this end, we create a database on wind turbine visibility,…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Corridor-Level Impacts of Battery-Electric Heavy-Duty Trucks and the Effects of Policy in the United States

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2023 · 17 citations

  Electrifying freight trucks will be key to alleviating air pollution burdens on disadvantaged communities and mitigating climate change. The United States plans to pursue this aim by adding vehicle charging infrastructure along specific freight corridors. This study explores the coevolution of the electricity grid and freight trucking landscape using an integrated assessment framework to identify when each interstate and drayage corridor becomes advantageous to electrify from a climate and human…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Corinne D. Scown

  47 shared

• Ralf Steinhauser

  44 shared

• Joseph E. Aldy

  30 shared

• Maureen Cropper

  27 shared

• Hendrik Wolff

  Simon Fraser University

  25 shared

• Howard Chong

  24 shared

• Gerrit Hansen

  Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, German Institute for International and Security Affairs

  23 shared

• Arthur G. Fraas

  22 shared

Labs

• Maximilian Auffhammer LabPI

Awards & honors

• Cozzarelli Prize awarded by the National Academies of Scienc…
• Sarlo Distinguished Mentoring Award (2007)
• Cheit Teaching Award in the Haas School of Business (2017)
• Cheit Teaching Award in the Haas School of Business (2021)
• Humboldt Fellow

Similar researchers at University of California, Berkeley

• Brian Wrighth-50
• Joseph Shapiroh-47
• Gordon Rausserh-42