Liz Stanton, PhD
Executive Director and Principal Economist (she/her)
Dr. Elizabeth A. Stanton is the founder and executive director of the Applied Economics Clinic. Dr. Stanton has an extensive publication record, including more than 170 reports, journal articles, books and book chapters as well as nearly 60 expert comments and oral and written testimony in public proceedings on topics related to energy, the economy, the environment, and equity.
She has submitted expert testimony and comments in the Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Vermont, and several federal dockets. Her recent work includes testimony and comments on climate plans, IRPs and efficiency plans, alternatives to fossil fuel infrastructure, proposed pipelines, energy storage, and the equitable implementation of a new green economy. In her previous position as a principal economist at Synapse Energy Economics, Dr. Stanton led studies examining environmental regulation, cost-benefit analyses, and the economics of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Prior to joining Synapse, Dr. Stanton was a senior economist with the Stockholm Environment Institute’s (SEI’s) Climate Economics Group, where she was responsible for leading the organization’s work on the Consumption-Based Emissions Inventory (CBEI) model and on water issues and climate change in the western United States.
Dr. Stanton’s articles have been published in Ecological Economics, Renewable Climate Change, Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Science & Technology, and other journals. She has also published books, including Climate Change and Global Equity (Anthem Press, 2014) and Climate Economics: The State of the Art (Routledge, 2013), which she co-wrote with her colleague at Synapse, Dr. Frank Ackerman. Stanton is also co-author of Environment for the People (Political Economy Research Institute, 2005, with James K. Boyce) and co-editor of Reclaiming Nature: Worldwide Strategies for Building Natural Assets (Anthem Press, 2007, with Boyce and Sunita Narain).
She earned her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and has taught economics at Tufts University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the College of New Rochelle, among others.