headshot of Joseph S. Shapiro

Research Bio

Joseph S. Shapiro is Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in Agricultural & Resource Economics and the Department of Economics. He also serves as Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Research Associate at the Energy Institute at Haas, and has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Political Economy and Co-Editor of the Journal of Public Economics,. His research studies two general questions: (1) How do globalization and the environment interact, including through trade, foreign investment, and international environmental and energy policy? (2) What have been the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of environmental and energy policies over the last half century? He studies climate change, air pollution, clean energy, renewable and exhaustible natural resources, and especially water pollution. His work has links to the economics of international trade, public finance, and health. Shapiro is inventor of a machine learning technology which is under license to help firms comply with Clean Water Act regulation. He has received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Kiel Institute Excellence in Global Affairs Award, and Marshall Scholarship. Shapiro holds a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, Masters degrees from Oxford and LSE, and a BA from Stanford.

Research Expertise and Interest

trade and the environment, water pollution, Clean Water Act, air pollution, climate change

In the News

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
May 4, 2020

How Global Trade Pacts Award 'Subsidies' for Climate Pollution

Bloomberg
Eric Roston
Tariffs and other features of the global trade system are interfering with climate goals and indirectly subsidizing fossil fuels, according to a new study by associate agricultural and resource economics professor Joseph Shapiro. He calls the interference an "environmental bias." He says it hasn't been measured in the trade system previously, but it's worth between $550 billion and $800 billion a year, amounting to more than direct subsidies that governments paid in the form of tax incentives to big greenhouse gas emitters in 2007. "This research is pointing out that different sets of policies that seem completely separate -- trade policy and climate change -- are connected quite closely in ways people might not have noticed," he says. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.
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