2591 SW Campus Way
Rm 220A
Corvallis, OR 97331
United States
Fields: environmental and natural resource economics, water, climate change, agricultural economics, institutional economics, interdisciplinary research on human-natural systems, sustainability.
Research interests include water resources and policy, climate change, interdisciplinary research on human-natural systems, benefit-cost analysis.
At OSU
Jaeger’s teaching includes courses in environmental and natural resource economics and sustainability.
Biography
William Jaeger is a professor in the Department of Applied Economics at Oregon State University, USA. His teaching includes graduate and undergraduate courses in environmental and resource economics, institutional economics, and sustainability. His research has a policy focus in the areas of environmental and resource economics, agriculture ,and sustainability with an emphasis on interdisciplinary research on human-natural systems. His work has involved the economics of water, climate change, fisheries and conservation, land use and land use change, environmental taxation, the “environmental Kuznets curve”, and agriculture. Previously he taught for 12 years at Williams College. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence Italy in 2016, a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Venice, Italy, and the University of Strasbourg, France 2023-24. He has also taught at the University of Washington and the University of Oregon.
Professional Accomplishments
Ph.D., Stanford University 1985 (applied economics); BA Washington State University (economics).
My Awards
My Publications
2019
2017
2015
2014
2013
2011
2010
Outreach and Extension
Extension policy specialist - work includes policy-oriented economic analysis related to agriculture, water (groundwater and surface water resources), land use, fisheries and energy.
My Media
An Oregon State University study underscores the need for state regulation to avert an economic and ecological crisis in the Harney Basin region.
“Groundwater is challenging to manage because it is hidden below ground and poorly understood,” said William Jaeger, a professor of applied economics at Oregon State.
Drawing on empirical studies, theoretical research and climate change policy models, Bill Jaeger also concludes that 30 years of international treaties addressing climate change, including most recently the Paris Agreement of 2015, are hopelessly stymied.
Decades of data show that despite billions in taxpayer investment, salmon and steelhead hatchery programs and restoration projects in the Columbia River Basin have failed to support or boost native fish populations and in fact are contributing to their decline.
Led by William Jaeger of the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, the study published today in PLOS One, analyzes 50 years of data that suggests while hatchery-reared salmon numbers have increased, there is no evidence of a net increase in naturally spawning fish.
Study finds no evidence of an increase in naturally spawning fish.
Professor Bill Jaeger, an expert on environmental, resource and agricultural policy issues, has been featured recently discussing the current water crisis in Oregon's Klamath Basin.
