headshot of Joseph S. Shapiro

Research Bio

Joseph S. Shapiro investigates the efficiency and effectiveness of environmental and energy policy. This agenda covers two main research areas: pollution, regulation, and trade; and defenses against environmental externalities. He has studied the interactions of trade policy and environmental policy, the effects of current tariffs and non-tariff barriers on greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. Clean Water Act, cap-and-trade markets for air pollution, adaptation to climate change, and effects of climate change on human health.

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
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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