MSc Environmental Economics & Climate Change;
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
If you decide to attend LSE, during the first dissertation meeting you will be told that the dissertation has the power to influence future opportunities and career paths and I believe that is true.
My EECC dissertation was a stated preference survey which examined Lake Erie basin residents’ willingness to pay for improved water quality in light of harmful algal blooms. I designed my survey online and through engagement with local stakeholder groups and businesses in the Great Lakes region in the U.S., as well as through Amazon Mechanical Turk, I was able to get enough responses to perform an analysis using Stata.
I am now an ORISE fellow working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. I work in the National Center for Environmental Economics, a division comprised of about 30 environmental economists. I am helping design two stated preference surveys which is where my dissertation research comes in very useful! One survey will focus on filling in the data gaps for quantifying health benefits from new regulations. The other survey will be part of a larger effort to estimate willingness to pay for water quality improvements. I’m also currently learning qualitative approaches to incorporate into my own long term research project.
I wish you the best of luck if you decide to attend LSE – make the most of your time as it flies by!