Robert Beach

Dr. Robert Beach is Director, Agricultural, Resource & Energy Economics and Policy and Fellow at RTI and a senior environmental and natural resource economist with over 15 years of experience managing and conducting applied research for federal agencies and other organizations. Dr. Beach specializes in the development and application of economic models to analyze agricultural, environmental, energy, transportation, and natural resource regulations, programs, and policies. Research applications include studies evaluating economic impacts of climate change and adaptation, risk management, policies to mitigate the impacts of natural disasters, the potential for and economic impacts of mitigating greenhouse gases from agriculture for regions around the world, low emissions development strategies (LEDS), the economic and environmental impacts of large-scale bioenergy production, land use change and associated greenhouse gas and other emissions including reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), potential mitigation and costs of black carbon and organic carbon emissions, and factors influencing forest investment and management. Dr. Beach is currently participating in the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Latin America Modeling Project (LAMP) effort and is a member of the LEDS Global Partnership as well as the working group on Climate Resilient Development integration to Low Emissions Development Strategies (CR-LEDS) and has participated and continues to participate in other LEDS-related initiatives. He was a core member of RTI’s Energy Grand Challenge effort and has contributed to multiple publications from that effort, focusing on energy economics components. He is also a member of the modeling teams contributing to the development, documentation, and application of the Applied Dynamic Analysis of the Global Economy (ADAGE) model, which is a dynamic CGE model used for energy, environmental, and trade policy analysis; the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) CGE model, the Forest and Agricultural Sector Optimization Model with Greenhouse Gases (FASOMGHG), and the China Agricultural Sector Model. He has published his research in peer-reviewed journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Energy Economics, The Energy Journal, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Economics, Climate Change Economics, Journal of Forest Economics, American Journal of Public Health, Land Economics, Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Forest Policy and Economics, Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, and Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics and is a member of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, the International Association of Agricultural Economists, and other professional organizations. Dr. Beach is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University and has taught courses in principles of economics, intermediate microeconomics, and environmental and natural resource economics at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.