The Climate, Environmental, and Resource (CLEAR) Economics Lab is a research-driven lab comprising faculty and students at Georgia Tech who apply economic tools to address climate change, the energy transition, environmental injustice, sustainability, and natural resource management. Insights from our data-driven research inform evidence-based policy decisions about today’s most pressing environmental challenges.
About
Achieving a healthy and sustainable future requires implementing creative economic and policy solutions. The CLEAR Economics Lab is at the forefront of these efforts, offering unbiased, timely evaluations of policies and market incentives that affect environmental and energy outcomes. To bring innovative and interdisciplinary thinking to bear on environmental and energy challenges, we also collaborate with scientists and engineers at Georgia Tech. Affiliates of CLEAR engage with local, state, and national partners to ensure our research findings are disseminated.
CLEAR regularly hosts events such as seminars, workshops, and weekly research lunches to foster idea generation and collaboration. A highlight is the Southeastern Workshop on Energy & Environmental Economics & Policy (SWEEEP), an annual conference that brings together energy and environmental economists from across the Southeast.
Students
Students interested in environmental and energy economics can:
- Earn an undergraduate minor in the Economics and Policy of Environmental Sustainability
- Earn a Ph.D. in Economics with a focus on environmental economics
- Take undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental economics, including:
- ECON 4440: Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment
- ECON 3300: Economics of International Energy Markets
- ECON 4210: Economics of Climate Change
- ECON 4460: Public Economics
- ECON 6380: Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment
- ECON 7102: Environmental Economics I (Ph.D.)
- ECON 7103: Environmental Economics II (Ph.D.)
Research
Faculty affiliates of the CLEAR Economics Lab work in a variety of research areas including:
- The impacts of air pollution on health, education, and other economic outcomes
- Residential energy use: behavioral responses to electricity prices and calls for conservation and the value of reliable electricity
- Environmental justice and equity: How policy might reduce or worsen existing inequality
- Firm behavior in the energy sector: How market structure, incentives, and policy impact firm investment and decisions
- The energy transition: efficiency and equity impacts of policies that encourage decarbonization of the grid and electrification of the economy
- The impacts of renewable energy on electricity markets and environmental outcomes
- Water markets: The impacts of inefficient water pricing