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Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics

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Dr. Greg Howard – AEDE Job Market Candidate

Dr. Greg Howard, a recent PhD graduate of the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics (AEDE) and a post-doctoral researcher in the department, studies the intersection of environmental and behavioral economics. This interest in understanding why individuals make decisions that have an environmental impact drew him to the study of a PhD in environmental economics at AEDE.

Dr. Howard, who was advised by Dr. Tim Haab and Dr. Brian Roe while studying at AEDE, focused on environmental economics, behavioral economics, applied microeconomics and experimental economics while studying at AEDE. In his research, he has examined whether individuals discount personal and social payments at different rates and he developed a discount rate elicitation methodology that allows for individual heterogeneity in background consumption. He has also focused on nutrient pollution to examine the impact of nutrient prices on nutrient watershed outputs, as well as farmer heterogeneity in preferences for best management practices. He has presented his research on farmer preferences regarding filter strip program adoption at a number of venues, including the AEDE Seminar Series and the Water Management Association of Ohio (WMAO) Conference. Previously in his academic career, Dr. Howard studied the conditions under which Coasian bargaining could be adapted to internalize intergenerational externalities, for which he received AEDE’s 2010 award for Best Research Manuscript by a Second Year PhD Student; this research was also recently published by the journal Ecological Economics.

While at AEDE he has not only served as a researcher in the department, but he has acted as both a teaching assistant and an instructor in the undergraduate program. He has been lead instructor for Ohio State’s Environmental and Natural Resources Economics course, which he was awarded the Bernie Erven Award for best department graduate teaching assistant. He has also served as the lead instructor for Ohio State's Problems and Policies in World Food, Population, and Environment Contemporary Issues course. He was a finalist for the university-wide 2012 Ohio State Graduate Teaching Associate Award. In moving forward, Dr. Howard would like to stay in academia, enabling him to both teach and conduct research.

Howard, who is originally from South Bend, Indiana and earned his undergraduate degree in economics at the University of Notre Dame as well as a master’s degree in economics from Ohio State, was drawn to the field of applied economics due to his interest in human behavior research. As noted, he also greatly enjoys research on the environment and the AEDE program of study afforded him the opportunity to combine these two fields in an environmental economics degree. He gravitated to economics over the other social sciences as he found it more intuitive than fields like psychology and sociology. Early on in his academic pursuits, Dr. Howard made the decision that he wanted to be an academic researcher and to teach at a high level, which drew him to pursue a PhD.

Dr. Howard notes that while a student at AEDE he greatly enjoyed the flexibility of the course of study in the PhD program. He notes that while the first and second year curriculums were pre-determined, during the remaining years of his study he had a wide wealth of class options from around the university to design a program that fit his individual interests. Dr. Howard greatly enjoyed crafting a class schedule that fit his individual goals.

To learn more about Dr. Greg Howard, please see his job market profile.