Matthew Kotchen

Matthew Kotchen is a professor of economics at Yale University, with a primary appointment in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and secondary appointments in the Yale School of Management and the Department of Economics. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Professor Kotchen's research interests lie at the intersection of environmental and public economics and policy. Kotchen joined the Yale faculty in 2009 and has held previous and visiting positions at Williams College, University of California (Santa Barbara and Berkeley), Stanford University, and Resources for the Future. Professor Kotchen has also served as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington, DC, the visiting chief economist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and as a member of the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He also serves as the founding organizer and editor of a new initiative through the NBER on Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy.

Education

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

Research Overview

Private Provision of Public Goods

Contributions in this area have been advances in the theory of voluntary provision of public goods. My research conceptualizes environmentally related goods and services as impure public goods, providing both private and public benefits (or costs). The need to understand these increasingly important choice settings involving impure public goods poses new questions for public economic theory—ones that have led me to write several papers that develop new models and new techniques for analyzing Nash equilibria. My research in this area takes a game-theoretic perspective, and the results have implications for consumer theory in general and environmental management in particular.

Green Markets: Empirical Investigations

A related line of my research is empirical and focuses on producer and consumer choice as it relates to the environment. This work seeks to test new theory on private provision of public goods. Several of my projects take advantage of field settings to empirically identify underlying motivations for environmentally related choices. My work on conservation behavior is based on original datasets involving voluntary participation of households in green electricity programs. I have ongoing research that investigates whether corporate social responsibility—which encompasses corporate environmental management—is a strategy to offset corporate social irresponsibility.

Nonmarket Valuation and Program Evaluation

Several of my papers and ongoing projects relate to nonmarket valuation and program evaluation. My earliest research includes methodological papers on survey design for contingent valuation. Some of this work builds explicit linkages to psychology in order the examine the relationship between attitudes, nonuse values, and stated preferences. My research on program evaluation focuses on topics ranging from relicensing agreements for hydroelectric dams to oil resources in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Most recently, a project on the effect of Daylight Saving Time on energy conservation has received widespread media attention.

Interdisciplinary Environmental Science and Management

Some of my current research activity reflects an interdisciplinary perspective on environmental science and management. One paper, coauthored with a political scientist, argues for greater attention to the notion of “coupled systems” in order the understand and meet environmental challenges. Other projects involve collaborations with natural scientists in which I apply econometric techniques to identify causation in natural systems. Specific projects relate to the effects of ecological restoration on stream and groundwater dynamics, environmental influences on coral bleaching, and the use of marine protected areas in spatially explicit fisheries stock assessments.