8th Annual NBER Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy Conference
Organized by Tatyana Deryugina, Matthew Kotchen, and Catherine Wolfram
Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
May 21, 2026
National Press Club, 529 14th Street, N.W., Washington DC

Thursday, May 21

9:30 am

Registration

10:00 am

Opening Remarks

10:15 am

Valuing Excess Deaths Caused by Climate Change

R. Daniel D. Bressler, Bentley University
Geoffrey Heal, Columbia University and NBER

11:00 am

Break

11:15 am

Voluntary Corporate Emission Commitments in a Patchwork Policy Landscape

Joseph E. Aldy, Harvard University and NBER
Alison Ong, Harvard University
Michael Toffel, Harvard University
Lavender Yang, Harvard University

12:00 pm

Luncheon
Speaker: Albert McGartland, Economic Policy Director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University and former Director of the National Center for Environmental Economics and the lead economist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2005 to 2025.

1:15 pm

Why a Properly Conducted Benefit-Cost Analysis Requires the Consideration of Distributional Impacts

Richard L. Revesz, New York University
Burçin Ünel, New York University
Sarah Wheaton, New York University

2:00 pm

From Minor Ailments to Major Illnesses: A Practical Framework for Valuing Morbidity in Environmental Policy Analysis

Mark Dickie, University of Central Florida
Matthew J. Neidell, Columbia University and NBER

2:45 pm

Break

3:00 pm

The Use and Misuse of Average and Marginal Energy Prices: Implications for Climate Policy

Jonathan Hawkins-Pierot, Econic Partners
Katherine R.H. Wagner, University of British Columbia

3:45 pm

The Environmental Costs of Sanctions: Flaring, Venting, and Biodiversity in Venezuela

Michele Fioretti, Bocconi University
Kavanaugh FitzPatrick, Bocconi University
Alessandro Iaria, University of Bristol

4:30 pm

Closing Comments and Adjourn