Dr Ben Balmford
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
B.J.Balmford@exeter.ac.uk
2554
Overview
I'm a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Dragon Capital research programme on biodiversity economics at the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute of the Economics Department at the University of Exeter Business School.
My research is primarily focussed on mechanism design and I use a variety of methods; developing simple models to capture the essence of the problem, and then typically combining these with data, either from the lab or the real world (be that RCTs or quasi-experimental evidence).
I came to economics from the natural sciences, first pursuing an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford. While I found my degree fascinating, it was apparent that issues of overexploitation were problems which science could largely not address; rather, solutions will be found through a better understanding of human behaviour and incentives.
Qualifications
- PhD in Economics, 2021
Links
Research
Research interests
My research is primarily focussed on mechanism design in the context of the environment. I use a variety of methods; developing simple models to capture the essence of the problem, and then typically combining these with data, either from the lab or the real world (be that RCTs or quasi-experimental evidence).
I have worked on how delegating monitoring decisions to individual agents can achieve efficient effort with minimal monitroing costs, and in both the lab and the field, how procurement (aka reverse) auctions can be used to select participants, and determine how much they are paid, in payment for ecosystem service schemes. More recently, I have been expanding the research agenda to look at how best to facilitate environmental markets involving multiple buyers and ecosystem services.
I very much see this research agenda as being motivated by an aim to improve real-world outcomes, and as can be seen in the Policy and Impact page, relish the work I do with external stakeholders such as governmental departments and water companies.
Research projects
My ongoing projects are broadly within the remit of informing the design of markets for environmental services. The first examines how markets involving the exchnage of multiple services between multiple buyers and sellers are most efficiently designed. Second, I am working (as a CoI) on "The Economics of Biodiversity Additionality" to understand the drivers of forest regrowth in Bolivia, and what regrowth therefore constitutes the baseline for any market-based instrument. Finally, I am working to understand what aspects of biodiversity people value, and how this could inform the calculations which underpin biodiversity credits in environmental markets.
