February 2, 2022 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Eastern Time (ET)

Investing in Infrastructure for the Energy Transition

Event Description:

Achieving committed decarbonization objectives will require substantial investments in infrastructure, for instance to connect remote wind and solar resources to demand centers, increase reliability in power systems with high shares of intermittent generation, or provide the required charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Infrastructure projects are costly and face a variety of barriers, however, prompting policymakers to dramatically scale up public spending in an effort to accelerate infrastructure deployment and harness short- and long-term economic benefits. Drawing on recent research, Paul L. Joskow, Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT, and James H. Stock, Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University, will discuss the role of infrastructure investment in the context of the energy transition.

Participants

Speaker:
Paul L. Joskow
MIT

Paul L. Joskow became President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on January 1, 2008. He is also the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics, Emeritus at MIT. He received a BA from Cornell University in 1968 and a PhD in Economics from Yale University in 1972. Professor Joskow was an active member of the MIT faculty from July 1, 1972 until August 31, 2010 and served as Head of the MIT Department of Economics from 1994 to 1998. He was Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research from 1999 through 2007. At MIT he was engaged in teaching and research in the areas of industrial organization, energy and environmental economics, competition policy, and government regulation of industry. Professor Joskow has published six books and over 125 articles and papers in these areas.
Speaker:
James H. Stock
Harvard University

James H. Stock is Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University; the Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and a member of the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School. His current research includes energy and environmental economics with a focus on fuels and on U.S. climate change policy. He is co-author, with Mark Watson, of a leading undergraduate econometrics textbook. In 2013-2014 he served as Member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where his portfolio included macroeconomics and energy and environmental policy. He was Chair of the Harvard Economics Department from 2007-2009. He holds a M.S. in statistics and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Moderator:
Jing Li
MIT

Jing holds the William Barton Rogers Career Development Chair of Energy Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. From 2017-2018, Jing Li was a Postdoctoral Associate of the MIT Energy Initiative. Jing’s research interests lie in energy economics and industrial organization, focusing on development and adoption of new technologies. Her most recent work examines compatibility and investment in electric vehicle recharging networks in the United States, and cost pass-through in the E85 retail market. Jing received her B.Sc. in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Economics from MIT in 2011, and her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard in 2017.