Dylan Brewer joined the faculty at the School of Economics in 2019. He received his PhD in Economics with a dual major in Environmental Science and Policy from Michigan State University in May 2019 as well as a Master of Arts degree in Economics from the same institution in 2016. Prior to his graduate studies, Dylan completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in Economics and International Relations at the University of Virginia in 2014. Dylan's research uses the tools of applied econometrics and machine learning to answer questions in energy and environmental economics. He has published research on household energy consumption, the economics of thermostat settings, recycling, electricity demand, machine learning methodology, and air quality among other topics. He teaches courses on environmental economics at the graduate and undergraduate level, and his Principles of Microeconomics course has won awards at Georgia Tech.
Education:
Ph.D., Michigan State University
M.A., Michigan State University
B.A., University of Virginia
Areas of Expertise:
Econometrics
Energy Economics
Environmental Economics
Machine Learning
Interests
Research Fields:
Energy Economics
Environmental Economics
Industrial Organization
Courses
ECON-2106: Prin of Microeconomics
ECON-4440: Economics of Environment
ECON-4699: Undergraduate Research
ECON-7103: Environmental Econ II
PUBP-6312: Economics-Environ Polcy
Publications
Recent Publications
Journal Articles
Do people listen when it matters? Estimating household responses to government requests to conserve energy using smart thermostat data
In:Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists [Peer Reviewed] Date: 2025
Is there a trade-off between forest expansion and agriculture? Evidence from India.
In:Land Economics [Peer Reviewed] Date: 2025
Expansion of forest area through afforestation and reforestation is a popular strategy to mitigate climate change. However, the vast land area required suggests a potentially large tradeoff between forest expansion and agriculture. From 2003-2010, one of the largest forest expansion programs in India was implemented in Rajasthan state. Using a yearly, district-level panel from 1991 to 2017, we estimate the effects of this program on the agricultural sector using two-way fixed effects and synthetic difference-in-differences approaches. Perhaps counterintuitively, our findings indicate the program had no impact on cultivated area in Rajasthan, suggesting agriculture was not displaced by forests. We also find robust, statistically significant increases in total agricultural production and yield following the program’s implementation, which may have been partly driven by an increase in local rainfall or other ecosystem services resulting from increased forest cover. We discuss the implications of our findings for afforestation/reforestation as a climate mitigation strategy.
Is there a trade-off between forest expansion and agriculture? Evidence from India.
In:Land Economics [Peer Reviewed] Date: 2025
Expansion of forest area through afforestation and reforestation is a popular strategy to mitigate climate change. However, the vast land area required suggests a potentially large tradeoff between forest expansion and agriculture. From 2003-2010, one of the largest forest expansion programs in India was implemented in Rajasthan state. Using a yearly, district-level panel from 1991 to 2017, we estimate the effects of this program on the agricultural sector using two-way fixed effects and synthetic difference-in-differences approaches. Perhaps counterintuitively, our findings indicate the program had no impact on cultivated area in Rajasthan, suggesting agriculture was not displaced by forests. We also find robust, statistically significant increases in total agricultural production and yield following the program’s implementation, which may have been partly driven by an increase in local rainfall or other ecosystem services resulting from increased forest cover. We discuss the implications of our findings for afforestation/reforestation as a climate mitigation strategy.
In:Annual Review of Resource Economics [Peer Reviewed] Date: October 2023
This article provides an overview of the recent economics literature analyzing the effect of air pollution on health outcomes. We review the common approaches to measuring and modeling air pollution exposures and the epidemiological and biological literature on health outcomes that undergird federal air regulations in the United States. The article contrasts the methods used in the epidemiology literature with the causal inference framework used in economics. In particular, we review the common sources of estimation bias in epidemiological approaches that the economics literature has sought to overcome with research designs that take advantage of natural experiments. We review new promising research designs for estimating concentration-response functions and identify areas for further research.
