Several Members of ARE Faculty and Alumni win AAEA Awards

Several members of the ARE faculty and alumni have earned major awards in the last AAEA (Agricultural & Applied Economics Association) meeting in Denver. The awards were announced Monday, July 26. They include:

Fellows:
W. Michael Hanemann, ARE Professor, UC Berkeley

W. Michael Hanemann is an unparalleled contributor to the field of agricultural and applied economics. He is best known for his contributions to the quantification of environmental amenities economics, but he has also made exceptional contributions to the economics of climate change, the economics of water, and the economics of environmental management under uncertainty. Hanemann’s intellectual contributions have inspired countless dissertations and journal articles, and he has mentored influential and outstanding scholars. Hanemann has made crucial contributions to critical policy debates, and has an outstanding record of service to the profession and society. He is currently the Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Goldman’s School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

Richard T. Carson, UC Berkeley ARE Alum Ph.D '85, Professor of Economics, UCSD

Richard T. Carson is one of the world’s leading environmental and resource economists. He received his Ph.D from the ARE department at UC Berkeley in 1985.His research has helped to bring stated preference methods and environmental valuation into the mainstream of economics.

His most prominent empirical contributions include the damage assessment for the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the benefit assessment for the U.S. Clean Water Act. On the theoretical side, Carson is best known for his work looking at the incentive and informational structure of stated preference questions. His recent work on forecasting Chinese carbon dioxide emissions received extensive media attention.

Erik Lichtenberg, UC Berkeley ARE Alum Ph.D '85, ARE Professor, University of Maryland

Over the course of his career, Erik Lichtenberg has made many fundamental contributions to understanding the interactions between agriculture, its natural resource base, and the environment. He is most widely recognized for examining critically various propositions about agriculture and the environment that are widely discussed in policy circles as conventional wisdom, subjecting them to theoretical and empirical examination based on rigorous conceptual frameworks. Many of these contributions have opened new research agendas in addition to informing policymakers.

Publication of Enduring Quality Award
Erik Lichtenberg, University of Maryland and David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley; "The Econometrics of Damage Control: Why Specification Matters." American Journal of Agricultural Economics (May 1986) 68(2): 261—273

Outstanding American Journal of Agricultural Economics Article Award
David R. Just, Cornell University and Travis J. Lybbert, University of California, Davis; "Risk Averters that Love Risk? Marginal Risk Aversion in Comparison to a Reference Gamble." American Journal of Agricultural Economics (August 2009) 91(3): 612-626

Outstanding Choices Article Award
David R. Just and Brian Wansink, Cornell University; "Smarter Lunchrooms: Using Behavioral Economics to Improve Meal Selection." Choices Magazine (Third Quarter 2009) 24(3)
 

David R. Just is an ARE Alum. He received his Ph.D from UC Berkeley in 2001. He is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at Cornell University. Professor Just's research interests center around the use of information, and more particularly, how differences in human capital and information availability affect decisions.