About

Robert Stavins is the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School. He serves as the Director of Graduate Studies for the Doctoral Programs in Public Policy and in Political Economy and Government, and is cochair of the MPP/MBA and MPA/ID/MBA Joint Degree Programs. He is also the Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program and the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements. His research has examined diverse areas of environmental economics and policy, and has been published in various economics, law, and policy journals, as well as several books. Stavins has directed initiatives such as Project 88, a bipartisan effort to develop innovative approaches to environmental problems, and has served as a consultant to government agencies, international organizations, corporations, and advocacy groups. He holds a BA in philosophy from Northwestern University, an MS in agricultural economics from Cornell, and a PhD in economics from Harvard.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Natural resource economics
• Business
• Neoclassical economics
• Economics
• Ecology
• Biology
• Environmental science
• Public economics

Selected publications

• GREG SWARZ (Director): <i>The Water of Life</i> Produced by Trevor Jones, Distributed by Indie Rights, 2021. 1 hour 28 minutes; available on Amazon Prime, $2.99. [https://www.amazon.com/Water-Life-Greg-W-Swartz/dp/B0DJWJQB48]

  Journal of Wine Economics · 2026-01-06

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  GREG SWARZ (Director): The Water of Life Produced by Trevor Jones, Distributed by Indie Rights, 2021. 1 hour 28 minutes; available on Amazon Prime, $2.99. [https://www.amazon.com/Water-Life-Greg-W-Swartz/dp/B0DJWJQB48]

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• TOM BRUCE-GARDYNE: <i>The Story of Scotch Whisky—A Journey of Discovery into the World’s Noblest Spirit</i> Carlton Books Limited, 2017, 176 pp., ISBN 978-1-78739-020-1, $26.95

  Journal of Wine Economics · 2026-01-22

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  For readers of this Journal, Scotch whisky may occupy a conceptual space that is adjacent to-but distinct from-the familiar terrain of fine wine.Both are products of agriculture that have been transformed by fermentation, shaped by geography, and given value through narratives of place, tradition, and scarcity.But the institutional structures, regulatory frameworks, and sensory vocabularies of Scotch whisky differ in ways that are quite revealing, especially for economists and wine connoisseurs accustomed to thinking in terms of terroir, appellations, and vintage variation.Tom Bruce-Gardyne's The Story of Scotch Whisky, subtitled A Journey of Discovery into the World's Noblest Spirit, offers an engaging and remarkably accessible introduction to the parallels and the differences, making it a useful and enjoyable read for wine-literate audiences that are interested in or at least curious about the world's most important distilled spirit.For those who are not afficionados of the "Water of Life, " it should be acknowledged that the book-like the world of Scotch whisky itself-is almost exclusively about single-malt bottlings, not blended whisky.More about that below.Bruce-Gardyne, a Scottish journalist and renowned long-time whisky writer, has produced a richly illustrated book that traces the evolution of Scotch whisky from its early origins to its current global prominence.The book's tone is decidedly not scholarly and detached, but conversational and enthusiastic, occasionally even romantic, written by a person who is deeply invested in his subject.For readers who are steeped in fine wine appreciation-particularly those familiar with the economics of premium and collectible wines-the book's value lies in the way it frames whisky as a cultural, economic, and geographic system.Part I of the book consists of eight chapters that trace the historical evolution of Scotch whisky, which will be interesting to most readers, and about which I have more to say below.Part II, which takes up the bulk of the book (100 of 160 total pages

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• The Value of Terroir: Hedonic Estimation of Vineyard Sale Prices

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

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• An Economic Perspective on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan — Cross-State Coordination Key to Cost-Effective CO₂ Reductions

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

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• Three Key Elements of Post-2012 International Climate Policy Architecture

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

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  We describe three essential elements of an effective post-2012 international global climate policy architecture: a means to ensure that key industrialized and developing nations are involved in differentiated but meaningful ways; an emphasis on an extended time path of targets; and inclusion of flexible market-based policy instruments to keep costs down and facilitate international equity. This architecture is consistent with fundamental aspects of the science, economics, and politics of global climate change; addresses specific shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol; and builds upon the foundation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

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• Linkage of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Systems: Learning from Experience

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

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• Terroir in the New World: Hedonic Estimation of Vineyard Sale Prices in California

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

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• Rolling the Dice in the Corridors of Power: William Nordhaus’s Impacts on Climate Change Policy

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

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• The Future of US Carbon-Pricing Policy

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  There is widespread agreement among economists – and a diverse set of other policy analysts – that at least in the long run, an economy-wide carbon pricing system will be an essential element of any national policy that can achieve meaningful reductions of CO2 emissions cost-effectively in the United States. There is less agreement, however, among economists and others in the policy community regarding the choice of specific carbon-pricing policy instrument, with some supporting carbon taxes and others favoring cap and trade mechanisms. This prompts two important questions. How do the two major approaches to carbon pricing compare on relevant dimensions, including but not limited to efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and distributional equity? And which of the two approaches is more likely to be adopted in the future in the United States? This paper addresses these questions by drawing on both normative and positive theories of policy instrument choice as they apply to U.S. climate change policy, and draws extensively on relevant empirical evidence. The paper concludes with a look at the path ahead, including an assessment of how the two carbon-pricing instruments can be made more politically acceptable. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

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• Linking Climate Policies to Advance Global Mitigation: Joining Jurisdictions Can Increase Efficiency of Mitigation

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  The November 2017 negotiations in Bonn, Germany, under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) validated that the Paris Agreement has met one of two necessary conditions for success. By achieving broad participation, including 195 countries, accounting for 99% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (1), the agreement dramatically improves on the 14% of global emissions associated with countries acting under the Kyoto Protocol (2), the international agreement it will replace in 2020. But the second necessary condition, adequate collective ambition of the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that countries have individually pledged, has not been met. One promising approach to incentivize countries to increase ambition over time is to link different climate policies, such that emission reductions in one jurisdiction can be counted toward mitigation commitments of another jurisdiction. Drawing on our research and our experiences in Bonn, we explore options and challenges for facilitating such linkages in light of the considerable heterogeneity that is likely to characterize regional, national, and subnational policy efforts.

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Frequent coauthors

• Richard G. Newell

  186 shared

• Joseph E. Aldy

  131 shared

• Adam B. Jaffe

  Sydney Children's Hospital

  97 shared

• Robert W. Hahn

  59 shared

• Richard Schmalensee

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  54 shared

• Andrew J. Plantinga

  51 shared

• Sheila M. Olmstead

  44 shared

• Alexander F. Wagner

  London School of Economics and Political Science

  37 shared

Awards & honors

• Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Resear…
• University Fellow of Resources for the Future
• former Chair of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's E…