Researcher Profile

Benjamin Leard

Fellow

202.328.5189 [email protected]

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Topics of Interest

• Climate Change
• Energy and Electricity
• Transportation
• CAFE Standards and Fuel Efficiency
• Cap and Trade
• Carbon Tax
• Energy Efficiency
• Forest Carbon
• Fuel Taxes

Ben Leard's research covers several areas of environmental and energy economics, with a particular focus on distributional issues in climate change policy and regulation in the transportation sector. His work on climate change has evaluated the tradeoffs between efficiency and distributional outcomes of several mechanisms for promoting emissions reductions from carbon offsets in cap-and-trade programs. In his work on transportation, Leard explores how fuel economy standards may impact consumers differently depending on the variation in consumer preferences for vehicle attributes.

Education

Cornell University, Applied Economics and Management, PhD 2014

James Madison University, Mathematics, Economics, BS 2008

Recent Work

• Discussion Paper

  Weather, Traffic Accidents, and Climate Change

  May 19, 2015 | Benjamin Leard, Kevin Roth | 43 pp.
  Climate Change Environmental Economics Topics Transportation
• Discussion Paper

  New Markets for Pollution and Energy Efficiency: Credit Trading under Automobile Greenhouse Gas and Fuel Economy Standards

  May 18, 2015 | Benjamin Leard, Virginia D. McConnell | 34 pp.
  Air Quality Energy and Electricity Transportation
• Resources Article

  Inside RFF: A Look at What’s Happening

  May 13, 2015 | Karen L. Palmer, Raymond J. Kopp, William A. Pizer, Joseph E. Aldy, Molly K. Macauley, Alan J. Krupnick, Zhongmin Wang, Kailin Kroetz, Benjamin Leard | 4 pp.