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Lester B. Lave
James Higgins Professor of Economics and Finance, Professor of Urban and Public Affairs, Professor of Engineering and Public Policy
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Email: ll01+@andrew.cmu.edu
Biography
Lester Lave, University Professor, Harry B. & James H. Higgins Professor of Economics; Professor of Public Policy and Management, and Professor of Engineering and Public Policy, at Carnegie Mellon University. He is Director of the Green Design Institute and, with Granger Morgan, is Co-Director of the Electricity Industry Center. Dr. Lave has a BA in economics from Reed College and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has served on and chaired committees of the National Academy of Sciences, American Medical Association, and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on review panels for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.
Lave has served as a consultant to many federal and state agencies, companies, and foundations.
Lave was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, was elected a University Professor at Carnegie Mellon, is a past president of the Society for Risk Analysis, and won the SA’s Distinguished Achievement Award. He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, other federal and state agencies, many foundations, and companies. He served on a Whitehouse Taskforce in the Carter Administration as a technical expert to a Whitehouse conference on Global Warming, and as a lecturer in Japan and Korea for the State Department. He has testified before Congress on many occasions.
Lave’s research has been focused on applying economics to a variety of public policy issues from the value of weather information to public policies toward storing helium to the effect of air pollution on health, to lifecycle analysis and electricity deregulation. See Selected Publications.
His teaching includes a course on the interface between government and business and, with Professor Marija Ilic, a course on the economics and engineering of the US electricity system.
He works with the local and state governments on economic development. He was a founding member of Pittsburgh’s Group Against Smog and Pollution.
Selected Publications
Chris T. Hendrickson, Lester Lave, & H. Scott Matthews, Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Goods and Services: An Input-Output Approach, Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2006.
Seth A. Blumsack, Jay Apt, and Lester Lave “Lessons from the Failure of U.S. Electricity Restructuring”, The Electricity Journal, Vol. 19, Issue 2, pp. 15-31, 2005).
Joule A. Bergerson and Lester Lave, “Should we Transport Coal, Gas, or Electricity: Cost, Efficiency, and Environmental Implications”, Environmental Science & Technology, Vol 39, No. 16, pp. 5905-5910, 2005. Won the American Chemical Society award for the best environmental policy paper in 2005.
Heather MacLean and Lester Lave, “Evaluating Automobile Fuel/Propulsion System Technologies”, Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 29 pp. 1-69, 2003.
Satish Joshi, R. Krishnan R, and L. Lave. "Estimating the Hidden Costs of Environmental Regulation" The Accounting Review (April 2001).
K.J. Arrow, J.L. Cropper, G.C. Eads, R.W. Hahn, L. Lave, R.G. Noll, P.R. Portney, M. Russell, R. Schmalensee, V.K. Smith, & R.N. Stavins, "Is There a Role for Benefit Cost Analysis in Environmental, Health, and Safety Regulation?", Science, April 12, 1996, Vol. 272, pp. 221 222.
L. Lave, C. Hendrickson and F. McMichael, "Environmental Implications of Electric Cars," Science Vol. 268, May 19 1995 pp. 992 995.
Fanny K. Ennever and L. Lave, "Patient Preferences and Prenatal Testing for Neural Tube Defects," Epidemiology, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 1995, p. 8 16.
L. Lave, Elisa Cobas Flores, Chris Hendrickson, Francis McMichael, "Using Input Output Analysis to Estimate Economy wide Discharges", Environmental Science Technology, Vol 29, No. 9, 1995.
L. Lave, D. Resendiz Carrillo and F. McMichael, "Safety Goals for High Hazard Dams: Are Dams Too Safe?" Water Resources Research, Vol. 26, No. 7, 1383 1391, July 1990.
L. Lave, "Formulating Greenhouse Policies in a Sea of Uncertainty," The Energy Journal, Special Issue on Global Warming, Vol. 11, No. 4, 61 64 1991.
L. Lave, F. Ennever, H. Rosenkranz, and G. Omenn, "Information Value of the Rodent Bioassay," Nature, 336:631 3, 1988.
L. Lave, "Health and Safety Risk Analysis: Information for Better Decisions," Science, 236, 291 5, 1987.
L. Lave and G. Omenn, "Cost Effectiveness of Short Term Tests of Carcinogenicity: An Analytic Framework," Nature, 324, 29 34, 1986.
L. Lave, "Conflicting Federal Regulations Concerning the Automobile," Science, 11:893 9, 1981.
L. Lave, The Strategy of Social Regulation: Decision Frameworks for Policy, Brookings Institution, 1981.
L. Breslow, J. Fielding and L. Lave (eds), Annual Review of Public Health, Vol. 1, Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews, 1980.
L. Lave and E. Seskin, Air Pollution and Human Health. Resources for the Future, Inc., 1977.
J. Lave, et al., National Task Force report, "Economic Impact of Preventive Medicine," sponsored by John E. Fogarty International Center NIH, Preventive Medicine, USA, 1976.
L. Lave and L. Freeburg, "Health Effects of Electricity Generation from Coal, Oil and Nuclear Fuel," Nuclear Safety, 14, 1973.
J. Lave and L. Lave, "Hospital Cost Functions: Estimating Cost Functions for Multi Product Firms," American Economic Review 60 (3), 379 95, June 1970.
L. Lave and E. Seskin, "Air Pollution and Human Health," Science 169, 723 33, 1970.
J. Lave and L. Lave, "Medical Care and Its Delivery: An Economic Appraisal," Law a Contemporary Problems 35 (2), 252 66, Spring 1970.
L. Lave, Technological Change: Its Conception and Measurement, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. 1966.
L. Lave, "An Empirical Approach to the Prisoners Dilemma Game," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 76, 424 36, 1962.
L. Lave, "The Value of Better Weather Information to the Raisin Industry," Econometrica, 31, 151 64, 1963.
Education
PhD, Economics, Harvard University
