Join us for the next Baker Center Energy and Environmental Forum, which will 
take place on Thursday, September 26 at 3.30 pm in Dougherty Engineering 
Room 416 (not Toyota Auditorium in Baker Center due to a scheduling conflict). 
 
James Shortle, Professor of Agricultural and Environmental Economics, and 
Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Institute, at Penn State 
University will give a 45 minute presentation and then lead a discussion with 
participants. His talk is titled:
 
“Towards a Science of Water Quality Trading”
 
Abstract: The potential for pollution trading in markets to efficiently achieve 
environmental-quality goals is one of the major conceptual innovations for 
environmental policy coming from economic research.  Successful applications 
in air pollution control have contributed to interest in using trading in other 
environmental domains.  However, water pollution problems generally do not 
conform closely to the assumptions of conventional economic models of 
efficient trading.   I will describe challenges to the design of water pollution 
markets that can efficiently manage water pollution.  I will describe how recent 
experiments in water quality trading have attempted to address these issues in 
water quality protection and offer lessons for market design.  Finally, I will offer 
suggestions for key elements of a multi-disciplinary approach for determining 
and realizing the promise of water quality markets.
 
James Shortle is the University Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and 
Environmental Economics, and Director of the Environment and Natural 
Resources Institute, at Penn State University.  He received his PhD in 
Economics from Iowa State University in 1981 and has been at Penn State 
since.  His current research focuses on the design of economic incentives and 
markets for water quality protection, environmental policy for agriculture, and 
impacts of climate change on agriculture and water resources.  He is a member 
of the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee to the US EPA Science 
Advisory Board, and recently served on the National Research Council 
Committee on Science for EPAs Future. 
 
NOTE: The forum will be meeting in Room 416 of the Dougherty Engineering 
Building on the Northeast corner side of campus (1512 Middle Drive behind 
Dabney-Buehler and the SERF building and beside Ming Kao).