Suzi Kerr

Contact Info:

[email protected]
http://www.motu.org.nz/about/people/suzi_kerr
Page in Stanford Directory

Phone: 650-721-2819

Office: Landau 345

Office hours: Thursday 3-5 pm or by appointment

Interests

• Research:

  Environmental Economics; public economics; applied microeconomics

• Current Research:

  Environmental markets and cooperation – policy design, simulation, implementation and evaluation:  land use and climate change, domestic emissions trading, water pollution from diffuse sources, Tropical Deforestation

• Teaching:

  Environmental Economics

• Professional Affiliations:

  AEA; Association of Environmental and Resource Economists; New Zealand Association of Economists; Scientific Steering Committee of the ‘Analysis, Integration and Modeling of the Earth Systems’ project of the IGBP.

Recent Publications

List of Stanford Working Papers

Current Courses

Autumn	ECON 250 Environmental Economics
Winter	ECON 155 Environmental Economics and Policy ECON 251 Natural Resource and Energy Economics
Spring	ECON 156 Cooperative and Regulatory Approaches to Environmental Policy

Education

Ph.D., Harvard University(Economics), 1995; B.Sc. honours (first class), University of Canterbury(Economics), 1987

Additional Info:

Suzi Kerr is a Visiting Professor in the Economics Department at Stanford University and a Senior Research Associate in Stanford’s Program in Energy and Sustainable Development.  She is also a Senior Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research in New Zealand. 

 

Kerr graduated from Harvard University in 1995 with a PhD in Economics. Following that she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland – College Park from 1995 through 1998. From 1999 – 2009 Kerr co-founded and was Director of Motu. She has been a visiting scholar at Resources for the Future (USA), Victoria University, and, from Jan - August 2001, in the Joint Center for the Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT. During 2006 she took a sabbatical combined with maternity leave in Valdivia in the south of Chile. 

 

Her research work empirically and theoretically investigates domestic and international environmental markets with special emphasis on land use and climate change in both the tropics and New Zealand, domestic emissions trading market design, nutrient trading to manage water quality, and the New Zealand Fisheries Individual Transferable Quota system and is now moving into exploring water allocation policy. She uses a combination of theoretical analysis, econometric analysis, simulation modeling, and active engagement in policy design. She works closely with many natural scientists through two integrated research projects that she leads, on climate change and water quality.  Internationally, she is  involved in integrated work through the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme scientific steering committee, ‘Analysis, Integration and Modelling of Earth Systems’. She is fascinated by the challenge of solving policy problems, but also likes to stay well grounded in empirical reality.

 

Kerr is involved at a high level in climate policy in New Zealand.  She was chosen to participate in New Zealand’s ‘Climate Change Leadership Forum’ a group of industry and other leaders created to advise the government, is on the Board of the Hikurangi Foundation, a new climate change focused philanthropic foundation,  and has given evidence to the select committee on climate change.

 

Outside of work, she loves hanging out with her daughters Manu(7) and Roma(4) and her husband Norman, planting trees and controlling possums and weeds in their forest, putzing in her garden and, when she gets a chance, enjoys white-water kayaking and hiking, as well as listening to Norman play Jazz.