# Environmental and Resource Economist Karen Fisher-Vanden Discusses Her Research on Economy-Wide Modeling for Climate Change Impacts and Policy in Newest Episode of “Environmental Insights” October 09, 2024 **CAMBRIDGE MA. –** The use of economy-wide, integrated assessment modeling to better understand climate change impacts and policy was the focus of discussion in the latest episode of “[Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program](https://soundcloud.com/environmentalinsights/)” featuring [Karen Fisher-Vanden](https://aese.psu.edu/directory/kaf26), the Distinguished Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics and Public Policy at [Pennsylvania State University](https://www.psu.edu/). The podcast is produced by the [Harvard Environmental Economics Program](http://www.heep.hks.harvard.edu/). Listen to the interview [here.](https://on.soundcloud.com/ZtZ3kxChqXWcvLZM7) Hosted by [Robert N. Stavins](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/robert-stavins), A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at [Harvard Kennedy School](http://www.hks.harvard.edu/) and director of the [Harvard Environmental Economics Program](http://www.heep.hks.harvard.edu/) and the [Harvard Project on Climate Agreements](https://www.belfercenter.org/project/harvard-project-climate-agreements), Environmental Insights is intended to promote public discourse on important issues at the intersection of economics and environmental policy. Fisher-Vanden, who serves as the current president of the [Association of Environmental and Resource Economists](https://www.aere.org/), earned a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.A. in Economics at the University of California, Davis, a M.S. in Management Science at the Anderson UCLA School of Management, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy at Harvard. She spent time working at the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Los Angeles, California, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington D.C. before settling into her academic career, initially at Dartmouth College and now at Penn State. “Penn State is known for its work on climate,” she said. “I was really excited about the opportunity to come here and build a large research program in integrated assessment modeling and economy-wide modeling for climate, not only climate policy, but climate impacts and adaptation, and I was able to do that here.” Much of Fisher-Vanden’s research is designed to decipher the economic feedbacks that drive climate impacts and climate policy, including [a 2018 paper](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/697168) she co-authored with Qin Fan and Allen Klaiber, published in the [Journal of the Association of Environmental Research Economists.](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jaere/current) “What I really like about this paper is it shows how econometrics and structural econometrics can be combined with economy-wide modeling to capture some important general equilibrium feedbacks that are crucial for getting the story \[right\]… There had been \[several\] papers that were using these residential sorting models, which is a structural econometric model, to analyze the effects of climate change on household location choice. And they basically were finding that climate change would create this large shift in population from southern states in the U.S. to the northern states,” she stated. “However, if you take into account equilibrium effects, you know that if everybody moves, north wages fall, housing prices increase. And these models were not taking that into account.” ‘\[We\] found that even though you do get some movement north, it significantly is dampened. And that seems to make sense if you start to look at what's happening in areas that you see these people moving to high climate risk states like Arizona, Texas, Florida, because the cost of living is a lot cheaper. We're starting to already see that type of thing \[happening\].” Fisher-Vanden, who served as lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) [Fifth Assessment Report Working Group III](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/) in 2014, assessing the academic and grey literature on the scientific, technological, environmental, economic and social aspects of mitigation of climate change since 2007, said that experience has helped guide her current work as director of Penn State’s Program on Coupled Human and Earth Systems. “Just to know how the IPCC works…has been very valuable not only in teaching… A lot of times being involved in these things allows you to identify new areas of research, and that's helped me with some recent direction of my research program,” she remarked. Fisher-Vanden, who teaches a course on economic analysis of environmental and resource policies, said her students glean a deeper understanding of how to develop public policies that will have a positive impact. “Why you're taking my course is you have to understand the economic incentives to change behavior, and you need some sort of training in economics to be able to do this. You need to be able to talk like an economist in terms of talking to policymakers,” she stated. “You want to harness \[their passion\], but you want to give them the tools to be able to be more effective in trying to argue their case and make a difference.” Fisher-Vanden’s interview is the eighth episode during 2024 in the [Environmental Insights](https://soundcloud.com/environmentalinsights/) series, with future episodes scheduled to drop each month. “Environmental Insights is intended to inform and educate listeners about important issues relating to an economic perspective on developments in environmental policy, including the design and implementation of market-based approaches to environmental protection,” said Stavins. “We speak with accomplished Harvard colleagues, other academics, and practitioners who are working on solving some of the most challenging public problems we face.” Environmental Insights is hosted on [SoundCloud](https://soundcloud.com/environmentalinsights) and is also available on [Amazon Music](https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/cd70f458-c1f4-4f11-bf64-c9e0dc71ee5b), [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/environmental-insights-conversations-on-policy-practice/id1482761966), [Pocket Casts](https://pca.st/keck3o78), [Podcast Addict](https://www.podcastaddict.com/podcast/3374959), and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/6WBWmeXTH90a3DoOYpXlhX). **LINK TO PODCAST:** [**https://on.soundcloud.com/ZtZ3kxChqXWcvLZM7**](https://on.soundcloud.com/ZtZ3kxChqXWcvLZM7) See also:- [ 2024 ](/news-year/2024) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)