Research Expertise and Interest

environmental economics, development economics, field experiments

Research Description

B. Kelsey Jack is an associate professor in the Business and Public Policy group at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Her research lies at the intersection of environmental and development economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities decide to use natural resources and provide public goods. Much of Jack’s research uses field experiments to test theory and new policy innovations. She has done research in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has ongoing work in South Africa, Ghana, Malawi and Niger. She co-chairs the Environment and Energy sector at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL), and is an associate editor at the American Economic Review and Econometrica.

Jack has held past appointments at UC Santa Barbara and Tufts University, and also completed a postdoc position at MIT, with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) at J-PAL. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University and a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University. Before graduate school, she spent two years in Lao PDR working for IUCN.