Ruben Lubowski

Focus areas: environmental and natural resource economics, climate change, carbon markets, carbon pricing, international climate policy, conservation policy, econometric analysis of land-use change, economics of tropical deforestation, reducing emissions from deforestation, and forest degradation (REDD+).

Ruben Lubowski is Chief Natural Resource Economist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), where he works with researchers and policy practitioners to analyze and implement carbon markets and other strategies to address global climate change. Ruben has testified before the U.S. Senate and developed analyses for decision-makers around the world. He is widely recognized for his expertise on economic analysis of climate and conservation policies in the US and major emerging economies. His special focus is economic modeling of carbon markets and the design of policies to address emissions from deforestation and other land-use activities.

Before joining EDF in 2007, Ruben spent five years at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service as a natural resource and agricultural economist and the agency’s specialist on land use. He previously developed and managed environmental projects in Latin America at the United Nations Development Program and conducted research at the World Bank and the Harvard Institute for International Development. Ruben also spent two years in rainforest communities in Sri Lanka designing and conducting surveys to quantify the value of tropical forest products. His doctoral dissertation was the first nationwide statistical analysis of land-use changes in the United States.

Honors and Awards

• Staff Award, Environmental Defense Fund, 2012
• Journal Article of the Year, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, 2007
• Helios Award for Research and Policy Contribution, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2005
• Danielian Prize for International Economics at Harvard University, 1997