Yale School of Management - Faculty

Associate Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy

Professor Kotchen’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of environmental and public economics. Recent projects investigate the effect of "green" markets on the provision of environmental public goods, participation in green-electricity programs, and voter referenda for open-space conservation. Ongoing research considers climate and energy policy, daylight saving time, management of common-pool resources, corporate social responsibility, charitable fundraising, and applied game theory. Several projects involve interdisciplinary collaborations with ecologists and political scientists.

Kotchen’s research is published in leading economics journals, interdisciplinary journals, and the popular press, and it has been reported on widely in major media outlets. He is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and has held previous positions at Williams College, University of California (Santa Barbara and Berkeley), Stanford University, and Resources for the Future (RFF).

Selected Articles
"Do Building Codes Save Energy? Evidence from Residential Billing Data in Florida" (with G. Jacobsen), The Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming

"Green Clubs" (with K. van't Veld), Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, forthcoming

"Plan B: Energy Efficiency Codes for Buildings," Milken Institute Review, forthcoming

"Review of Climatopolis," Journal of Economic Literature, forthcoming

"Does Daylight Saving Time Save Energy? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Indiana" (with L. E. Grant), The Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming

"Voluntary Provision of Public Goods for Bads: A Theory of Environmental Offsets," The Economic Journal, 119, 883-899, 2009

"Conservation: From Voluntary Restraint to a Voluntary Price Premium" (with M. R. Moore), Environmental and Resource Economics, Vol. 40, 195-215, 2008

"Should We Drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? An Economic Perspective" (with N. E. Burger), Energy Policy, Vol. 35 4720-4729, 2007

"Equilibrium Existence and Uniqueness in Impure Public Good Models," Economics Letters, Vol. 97, 91-96, 2007

"Private Provision of Environmental Public Goods: Household Participation in Green-Electricity Programs" (with with M. R. Moore), Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 53, 1-16, 2007

Education
PhD University of Michigan, 2003
MS University of Michigan, 2003
MS University of Maine, 1997
BA University of Vermont, 1993