Curriculum Vitae

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Daniel A. Brent

Associate Professor
Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
The Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA 16802
Email: dab320@psu.edu
Website: https://www.danielbrent.com

Academic Employment

Pennsylvania State University
Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
- Associate Professor, 2023–present
- Assistant Professor, 2018–2023

Louisiana State University
Department of Economics
- Assistant Professor, 2015–2018

Monash University
Department of Economics
- Research Fellow, 2013–2015

Education

• Ph.D. in Economics, University of Washington, 2013
• M.S. in Economics, University of Washington, 2010
• B.S. in Economics and Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, 2006

Research Interests

Environmental economics; Water resource economics; Applied econometrics; Causal inference; Financial literacy

Publications

• Lara, G. R., Brent, D. A., Lassiter, A., & Tian, H. (2025). Causal effects of urbanization and winter weather on salinity in the Delaware River Basin Journal of Environmental Management, 391, 126288.
  Working paper

• Patel, P., Scott, C., & Brent, D. A. (2024). Four birds with one stone? Opportunities and challenges in adopting solar irrigation for a sustainable water–energy–food nexus with carbon credits Water International.

• Brent, D. A., Ren, Y., & Wrenn, D. (2024). The distributional impact of FEMA’s Community Rating System Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 52(1), 87–118.
  Working paper

• Yavari, R., Wu, H., Grady, C., Brent, D. A., Clark, S., et al. (2023). Identifying sweet spots for green stormwater infrastructure implementation: A case study in Lancaster, Pennsylvania Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment, 9(3).

• Wang, R., Brent, D. A., & Wu, H. (2022). Willingness to pay for ecosystem benefits of green stormwater infrastructure in Chinese sponge cities Journal of Cleaner Production, 371, 133462.

• Brent, D. A., Cook, J., & Lassiter, A. (2022). The effects of eligibility and voluntary participation on the distribution of benefits in environmental programs Land Economics, 98(4), 579–598.
  Working paper

• Brent, D. A., Gangadharan, L., Leroux, A., & Raschky, P. A. (2021). Reducing bias in preference elicitation for environmental public goods Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 66(2), 280–308.
  Working paper

• Brent, D. A., Lott, C., Taylor, M., Cook, J., Rollins, K., & Stoddard, S. (2020). What causes heterogeneous responses to social comparison messages for water conservation? Environmental and Resource Economics, 77, 503–537.
  Working paper

• Brent, D. A., & Beland, L. P. (2020). Traffic congestion, transportation policies, and the performance of first responders Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 103, 102239.
  Working paper

• Arora, R. A., Brent, D. A., & Jaenicke, E. C. (2020). Is India ready for alt-meat? Preferences and willingness to pay for meat alternatives in India Sustainability, 12, 4377. (Open Access)

• Brent, D. A., & Ward, M. B. (2019). Price perceptions in water demand Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 98, 102266.
  Working paper

• Dorner, Z., Brent, D. A., & Leroux, A. (2019). Preferences for intrinsically risky attributes Land Economics, 95(4), 494–514.
  Working paper

• Brent, D. A., & Chan, N. W. (2019). Local public goods and the crowding-out hypothesis: Evidence from civic crowdfunding Economics Bulletin, 39(3), 2142–2154.
  Working paper

• Brent, D. A., & Lorah, K. (2019). The economic geography of civic crowdfunding Cities, 90, 122–130.
  Working paper

• Brent, D. A., Gangadharan, L., Mihut, A., & Villeval, M. C. (2019). Taxation, redistribution, and observability in social dilemmas Journal of Public Economic Theory, 21(5), 826–846.
  Working paper
  Media: Dublin Inquirer

• Brent, D. A., & Ward, M. B. (2018). Energy efficiency and financial literacy Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 90, 181–216.
  Working paper

• Beland, L. P., & Brent, D. A. (2018). Traffic and crime Journal of Public Economics, 160, 96–116.
  Working paper
  Media: New York Times; The Conversation; Scientific American; Salon; KCRW Los Angeles (NPR); BBC 5 Live (UK)

• Brent, D. A., & Gross, A. (2018). Dynamic road pricing and the value of time and reliability Journal of Regional Science, 58(2), 330–349.
  Working paper
  Media: Atlantic Cities; Sightline Daily; City Observatory

• Brent, D. A., Gangadharan, L., Lassiter, A., Leroux, A., & Raschky, P. A. (2017). Valuing environmental services provided by local stormwater management Water Resources Research, 53(6), 4907–4921.
  Working paper

• Brent, D. A., Friesen, L., Gangadharan, L., & Leibbrandt, A. (2017). Behavioral insights from field experiments in environmental economics International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, 10(2), 95–143.
  Working paper

• Brent, D. A. (2017). The value of heterogeneous property rights and the costs of water volatility American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 99(1), 73–102.
  Working paper Appendix

• Brent, D. A., Cook, J. H., & Olsen, S. (2015). Social comparisons, household water use, and participation in utility conservation programs: Evidence from three randomized trials Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2(4), 597–627.
  Working paper
  Appendix

• Brent, D. A., & Rabotyagov, S. (2013). Land use change from biofuels derived from forest residue: A case of Washington State Economics Research International, 2013.

Working Papers

• Peer effects in voluntary environmental programs: An application to urban water quality
  (with Gabe Lara; Douglas Wrenn; Joe Cook) — Revise & Resubmit, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

• Do behavioral nudges interact with prevailing economic incentives? Pairing experimental and quasi-experimental evidence from water consumption
  (with Casey Wichman) — Under review

• Financial literacy, student debt, and academic achievement
  (with Douglas Wrenn) — Under review

• Conservation and distributional consequences of pricing scarce water during droughts
  (with Casey Wichman; Derek Wietelman) — Under review

• Behavioral responses to two-part tariffs: Evidence from the introduction of volumetric water pricing
  (with Praharsh Patel; Casey Wichman) — In preparation

• Vulnerabilities to salinity risks from climate change and development in the Delaware River Basin
  (with Gabriel Lara; Allison Lassiter; Hui Tan) — In preparation

• Consumer value of information and the behavioral response to carbon and calorie food labels
  (with Amit Sharma) — In preparation

• Estimating water demand at the intensive and extensive margin
  — In preparation

Work in Progress

• Flood risk perceptions, information, and the demand for adaptation
  (with Ishani Palandurkar)

• Experimental evidence on the voluntary adoption and demand response to time-varying electricity rates
  (with Andrea La Nauze; Nathan Eisner; Casey Wichman)

• Valuing clean water from abandoned mine reclamation
  (with Ishani Palandurkar)

Reports & Other Publications

• Cook, J. H., & Brent, D. A. (2021).
  Do households respond to marginal or average price of piped water services?
  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Public Health.

• Brent, D. A. (2015).
  Review of Living with Water Scarcity by David Zetland.
  Water Economics and Policy, 01, 158003.

• Brent, D. A., Leibbrandt, A., & Smith, L. (2014).
  Economic incentives for managing peak electricity demand: Review, options, and context analysis.
  Melbourne, Australia, pp. 1–38.

• Yoder, J., Adam, J., Brady, M., Cook, J., Katz, S., Brent, D., Johnston, S., Malek, K., McMilan, J., & Yang, Q. (2014).
  Benefit–cost analysis of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan projects.
  State of Washington Water Research Center.

Teaching Experience

Pennsylvania State University - Applied Microeconometrics II (PhD) - Personal Financial Decision-Making - Economic Analysis of Environmental and Resource Policies - Environmental Economics and Policy - Economic Principles of Agribusiness Management

Louisiana State University - Environmental Economics - Intermediate Microeconomic Theory - Principles of Microeconomics

University of Washington - Intermediate Microeconomics - Introductory Microeconomics

Advising

Advisor

• Ishani Palandurkar — EEFE PhD, Penn State (Expected 2027)
• Praharsh Patel — EEFE PhD, Penn State (Expected 2025)
• Gabriel Lara — EEFE PhD, Penn State (Co-advisor; Expected 2025)
• Yongwang Wang — EEFE PhD, Penn State (2024)
• Rashmit Arora — EEFE MS, Penn State (Co-advisor; 2018)

Committee Member

• Xue Xiao Wang — Real Estate PhD, Penn State (2023)
• Arun Regmi — Forest Resources PhD, Penn State (2023)
• Jinglin Feng — EEFE PhD, Penn State (2023)
• Asif Rasool — EEFE PhD, Penn State (2023)
• Rui Wang — Landscape Architecture PhD, Penn State (2023)
• Darrah Peklak — EEFE MS, Penn State (2019)
• Xiagou Li — EEFE PhD, Penn State (2018)
• Jhacova Williams — Economics PhD, Louisiana State University (2018)

Grants and Awards

• NSF — CLIMA: Climate-resilient infrastructure adaptations for maladaptive levee networks (Co-PI), $757,974, 2023–2026
• USDA NIFA — Evaluating and Improving the Integrity of Riparian Buffers for Achieving Water Quality Benefits (Co-PI), $750,000, 2023–2026
• USDA NIFA — Developing Evidence-Based Guidelines for Sustainable Diet Offerings (Co-PI), $299,887, 2023–2025
• PA Sea Grant (NOAA) — Vulnerabilities to salinity risks in the Delaware River Basin (PI), $124,934, 2022–2024
• PA Sea Grant (NOAA) — Ecosystem services assessment for green stormwater infrastructure (Co-PI), $120,000, 2022–2024
• Penn State IEE Seed Grant — Solar irrigation adoption in India (PI), $29,479, 2021
• Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis
• Washington State University CAHNRS Team Interdisciplinary Award

Professional Associations

• American Economic Association
• Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
• Agricultural and Applied Economics Association
• Urban Economics Association

Referee Service

Agricultural Economics; American Economic Journal: Economic Policy; American Journal of Agricultural Economics; Ecological Economics; Economic Inquiry; Environmental and Resource Economics; Energy Economics; Environmental Resource Letters; Journal of Economic Behavioral and Organization; Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists; Journal of the European Economics Association; Journal of Environmental Economics and Management; Journal of political Economy: Microeconomics; Journal of Public Economics; Journal of Regional Science; Management Science; Marine Resource Economics; Nature Water; Proceedings of the National Academy of Science; Resource and Energy Economics; Quarterly Journal of Economics; Water Resources Research; Weather, Climate, and Society; and others.

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Professional Experience

Private Consulting

• Shield (2022): Benefit–cost analysis of digital siren and bullhorn
• Yakima Basin Integrated Plan (2014): Agricultural sector benefits
• SP AusNet & BehaviourWorks Australia (2014): Peak electricity demand incentives
• City of Phoenix Water Services Department (2013): Satellite-based classification for residential water demand

Research Appointments - Research Associate, Sergey Rabotyagov, University of Washington SEFS (2011–2013) - Research Assistant, Hendrik Wolff, University of Washington Economics (2011) - Survey Statistician, U.S. Department of Energy (2007–2008)