Steve Polasky is a Regents Professor and the Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota. His research interests focus on issues at the intersection of ecology and economics and include the impacts of land use and land management on the provision and value of ecosystem services and natural capital, biodiversity conservation, sustainability, environmental regulation, renewable energy, and common property resources. He served as Senior Staff Economist for environment and resources for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers 1998-1999. He serves on the Science Advisory Board for EPA and NOAA. He serves on the Board of Directors and the Science Council for The Nature Conservancy. He is a fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2010. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan in 1986.
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Aug 01 2016 Blog Post Mainstreaming Natural Capital Accounting: Building On a Decade of Experience China’s leaders first became interested in natural capital after devastating landslides and flooding in 1998 killed thousands and displaced millions of people, at a cost of more than US$30 billion in damages. In response, the Chinese government invested over $150 billion in natural capital—extensive deforestation was partly to blame. China recently published its first National […]