Building on a legacy that includes a Nobel prize, we support leading work on electric vehicles, climate-resilient infrastructure, biofuel policy, macroeconomic effects of climate change, and carbon taxation. This is a relatively new policy area at Tobin, but one that is quickly expanding. Select highlights include:

Energy Science and Policy Program 

We have worked with Yale's West Campus Energy Science Institute and the Planetary Solutions Project to launch the Yale Energy Science and Policy Program, a multidisciplinary research enterprise developing global solutions for a clean energy future. The Tobin Center's efforts with this program have been led by Faculty Director Steve Berry, who supports the program as it brings together economists, environmental policy faculty, scientists, and engineers to develop timely solutions to our present energy and climate challenges. 

Putting Nature on America’s Balance Sheet

Economics Professor Eli Fenichel recently returned from the White House where his work informed a landmark Presidential Executive Order that will cause natural assets to be counted alongside GDP measures in assessments of national economic performance. Together with 54 of our partners, including leading business-environmental organizations, we submitted a public comment to the Federal Natural Capital Accounting Strategy. We continue to support research and policy efforts to include these critical environmental metrics on our country’s balance sheet.

Launching Modeling Improvement Initiative 

This project led by Professors Costas Arkolakis and Steve Berry addresses the three central challenges of the decades-old economic models underlying so much of environmental policy: (1) they have not kept up with modern advances in spatial economics and would be much improved if they did; (2) they are poorly founded empirically – i.e. not only are the models suboptimal, but the inputs are too; (3) they would greatly benefit from better integration with biological and physical sciences.