Roberton Williams

Biography:

Rob Williams studies both environmental policy and tax policy, with a particular focus on interactions between the two. In addition to his role at the University of Maryland, he is the Chief Economist for the Climate Leadership Council, a University Fellow at Resources for the Future and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was previously an associate professor at the University of Texas, Austin; a visiting research scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Williams has served as a coeditor of both the Journal of Public Economics and the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

Education:

Ph.D., Economics, Stanford University, 1999
A.B., Economics, magna cum laude, Harvard College, 1994

Research Areas:

• Public Economics

• Environmental Economics

• Microeconomic Theory

• Taxation

• Carbon Pricing

• Climate Change Policy

• Design of Environmental Regulations

• Fuel Taxes

Selected Publications:

“How Is the US Pricing Carbon? How Could We Price Carbon?” with Joseph Aldy, Dallas Burtraw, Maureen Cropper, Carolyn Fischer, and Meredith Fowlie, Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, 2022, 13(3):310-334.

“Environmental Policy, Full-Employment Models, and Employment: A Critical Analysis,” with Marc Hafstead and Yunguang Chen, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2022, 9(2):199-234.

“Designing and Evaluating a Carbon Tax Adjustment Mechanism to Reduce Emissions Uncertainty,” with Marc Hafstead, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2020, 14(1):95-113.

“Jobs and Environmental Regulation,” with Marc Hafstead, Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, 2020, 1:192-240.

“How to Change U.S. Climate Policy After There Is a Price on Carbon” Hamilton Project Policy Proposal 2019-15 (2019).

“Unemployment and Environmental Regulation in General Equilibrium,” with Marc Hafstead, Journal of Public Economics, 2018, 160:50-65.

“Environmental Taxation,” in A. Auerbach and K. Smetters (eds.) The Economics of Tax Policy, Oxford University Press, 2017.

“Adding Quantity Certainty to a Carbon Tax: The Role of a Tax Adjustment Mechanism for Policy Pre-Commitment,” with Marc Hafstead and Gilbert Metcalf, Harvard Environmental Law Review Forum, 2017, 41:41-57.

“General Equilibrium Impacts of a Federal Clean Energy Standard,” with Lawrence Goulder and Marc Hafstead, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2016, 8(2):186-218.

“The Initial Incidence of a Carbon Tax across Income Groups,” with Hal Gordon, Dallas Burtraw, Jared Carbone, and Richard Morgenstern, National Tax Journal, 2015, 68(1):195-214.