GSPP Faculty
Margaret Taylor
Curriculum Vitae:
- CV (HTML format)
Roundtables & Working Groups:
- Climate Change and Changes in Large Technical Systems
- Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology
- Roundtable on New Transportation Fuels
Areas of Expertise/Interest:
- Climate Change
- Engineering
- Environmental Management
- Environmental Markets
- Environmental Policy
- Intellectual Property
- International R&D policy
- Organizational Behavior/Learning
- Regulation
- Technological Innovation
- Technology Policy
Biographical Statement:
Margaret's research explores issues in innovation and environmental policy. Much of her research focuses on how policy can induce (or block) innovation in "clean" technologies, with a particular focus on technologies that are relevant to climate change. In this line of research, she has shown that traditional environmental regulations have been effective in stimulating innovation, that cap-and-trade programs have been less effective than predicted in stimulating innovation, and that models of the effects of government actions on innovation have not adequately captured the diversity of policy approaches employed to stimulate clean technologies, to the detriment of our understanding of the innovation process in these technologies. She is also working on projects to consider the effectiveness of "technology-forcing" regulations vis-a-vis "performance-based" regulations with regard to advanced vehicles, as well as on the role of venture capital, entrepreneurs, and individual inventors in innovation in alternative energy technologies, particularly as that role relates to environmental, energy, and technology policy. Her work often draws on insights and methods from economics, organization theory, and engineering.
There is a flip side to the policy-innovation dynamic that Margaret has also begun exploring in her research: how policy copes with technology-induced risks. In this vein, she is working on several projects related to the role of policy in addressing the environmental implications of nanotechnology, as well as on a project that focuses on the comparative risks of carbon capture and sequestration versus nuclear power as options for combating climate change.
Margaret's research has won awards from the Academy of Management and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis. Her background includes legal and Capitol Hill experience in the areas of international trade, energy, and the environment, as well as consulting experience. Her education was at Carnegie Mellon University and Columbia University.
