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Research
and Policy Program
The goal of the Research and Policy Program is to deepen public understanding and influence public debate over environmental and development problems and policies. While contemporary intellectual fashion too often treats market incentives as a panacea for environmental problems and international development, GDAE sees a legitimate but limited role for these policies, alongside diverse other approaches. Complementing GDAE's educational and theoretical efforts, the program's main goals are to identify the appropriate role for market-based instruments and develop alternative proposals that make use of a wider range of policy measures.
The Research and Policy Program currently focuses on three areas:
Climate Economics:
GDAE, in collaboration with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), is conducting a series of studies on the economics of climate change including: projections of the costs of inaction, critiques of standard economic analyses of climate policy, and development of new tools for modeling climate economics. Past research has addressed the climate impacts of waste management, and the carbon content of U.S.- Japan trade.
Globalization and Sustainable Development: Is international economic integration compatible with socially and environmentally sustainable development? Using Mexico's experience with rapid trade liberalization as a laboratory, GDAE is working with Mexican researchers to provide empirical research that can support the efforts to promote a more sustainable approach to the process of economic integration. From its initial focus on Mexico, the program will broaden to assess related trade processes, such as the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Health and the Environment: GDAE has developed a thorough critique of the current over-reliance on market-based approaches in environmental policy-making. This is part of a broader effort to assess the fallacies in the economic theories used to justify market-based policies for health and the environment.
Many of GDAE's ongoing research efforts are first published as "GDAE Working Papers" and are available free on this web site.
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