THE ENERGY AND RESOURCES GROUP FALL 2020 COLLOQUIUM SERIES PRESENTS: TITLE: Estimating global policy impacts in unprecedented contexts with interdisciplinary econometric approaches DATE: Wednesday, September 2, 2020 TIME: 4:00-5:30 PM LOCATION: Zoom Webinar SPEAKER: Ian Bolliger DESCRIPTION: When faced with a policy decision, we often use historical contexts to predict how the proposed policy will impact outcomes that we care about. But what do we do when there is no relevant historical precedent? How do we determine which policies work best at slowing COVID-19 transmission when we have never seen a pandemic of this magnitude? How do we quantify the benefits of reducing economic risk from extreme events in a world that is warmer than we have ever experienced? In this talk, Ian will survey his doctoral research at ERG, in which he blended traditional econometric tools with process models from diverse fields to provide insight for data-constrained policy decisions like these. SPEAKER: Ian completed his PhD in ERG this fall, where he blended process models with statistical approaches to address large-scale policy questions. He now works as a Climate Data Scientist at Rhodium Group, an independent research firm in Oakland and a member of the Climate Impact Lab. In that role, he is continuing the portion of his PhD research dedicated to forecasting coastal climate risks due to sea level rise and changing tropical cyclone patterns. Aside from his ERG degree, Ian holds an MS in Civil Engineering from UC Berkeley and a BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.