About the Authors

Discounting the Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation

About the Authors

Richard Newell

Richard Newell is a fellow in the Energy and Natural Resources division at Resources for the Future (RFF). His current research focuses on the economic analysis of policy design and performance, with a particular interest in incentive-based policy and technological change. His research applications encompass a range of environmental and natural resource issues, including discounting, energy-efficiency, climate change, air pollution, and fisheries management. His methodological approaches include econometric analysis, modeling, simulation, and cost-benefit analysis.

On the research staff since 1997, Newell received his Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University, where he specialized in environmental and natural resource economics. He also holds a master's degree in public policy and urban planning from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and undergraduate degrees in engineering and philosophy.

Newell is a member of the American Economic Association (AEA) and the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE). He has served as a consultant to state and federal agencies, environmental groups, international organizations, business organizations, and private firms.

William Pizer

William (Billy) Pizer is a Fellow in the Quality of the Environment Division at Resources for the Future (RFF). His current research focuses on the design and efficiency of environmental regulation under different circumstances, including uncertainty, endogenous technical change, and firm and household heterogeneity. He is particularly interested in the design of policies to address the risk of climate change due to manmade emissions of greenhouse gases.

He has worked at RFF since receiving his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University in 1996. Specializing in econometrics and public finance, his dissertation considered the importance of uncertainty in the design of efficient climate change mitigation policies. He also holds a master's degree in economics and an undergraduate degree in physics. He is currently on leave as a Senior Economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers.