Dr Ben Balmford

Ben Balmford is a Lecturer in Economics at the LEEP Institute of the Economics Department. He is an environmental economist with research interests in three particular fields: mechanism and market design in environmental problems, understanding the economic drivers of forest dynamics, and assessing the values of biodiversity.

Regarding Ben's research focus on mechanism design, he uses 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). He has a particular interest in the design and application of double-sided markets (lots of buyers and sellers) in the context of trade for multiple ecosystem services.

In understanding the economic process which underpin forest dynamics in the Global South, and how this understanding can then be applied to questions related to additionality and leakage, Ben develops and applies Machine Learning models in combination with more traditional quasi-experimental techniques in order to recover causal estimates of treatment effects. Second, he applies a combination of choice experiments and large language models to develop an understanding of the value that biodiversity contributes to people, both how society at large values different biodiversity attributes, and also how perceptions of biodiversity risk and opportunity affect decisions in financial markets.

Ben 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.

Across all strands of his reseach, Ben very much sees his research agenda as being motivated by an aim to improve real-world outcomes, and relishes the work he does with external stakeholders such as governmental departments and water companies.

Qualifications:

• PhD in Economics, 2021

Links

• Personal Website
• Google Scholar profile
• ORCID profile
• ResearchGate profile