David Zilberman (economist)

David Zilberman (born May 9, 1947) is an Israeli-American economist, professor and Robinson Chair in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.^[1]

Biography

Zilberman was born in Jerusalem, the son of a farmer. He attended Hebrew University Secondary School, also known as Leyeda. He received his B. A. in Economics and Statistics at Tel Aviv University, Israel, and obtained his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1979. Zilberman is married to Leorah and has 3 sons and 3 grandchildren.

Academic career

Zilberman has been a professor in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department at UC Berkeley since 1979. His research has covered a range of fields including the economics of production technology and risk in agriculture, agricultural and environmental policy, marketing and more recently the economics of climate change, biofuel and biotechnology.

During the 1980s, his work served as the basis for several projects on the adoption of modern irrigation technology and computers in California agriculture. These studies demonstrated that farmers adopt new technologies when it makes economic sense and that extreme events, such as droughts or high prices, can trigger changes in farming practices. During the early 1990s, his research on pesticide economics and policy made the case against policies that called to ban pesticides, and advocated instead for smart policies that take advantage of the vast economic benefits that pesticides generate while using incentives to protect against side effects.^[2]

He has published in academic journals including Science, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nature Biotechnology, The American Economic Review, Econometrica, and the Journal of Development Economics.

Activities and Honors

He is a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) and the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE). He was a recipient of the AAEA 2007 Quality of Communication Award and Outstanding Review of Agricultural Economics Article, the AAEA 2005 Publication of Enduring Quality Award, the 2002 Quality of Research Discovery Award, and the 2000 Cannes Water and the Economy Award. He has served as a consultant for the World Bank, The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the USDA, CGIAR, the Environmental Protection Agency and has served on two National Research Council panels.

Zilberman has worked in agricultural economics, environmental economics, resource economics, water, climate change, biofuel and agricultural biotechnology with over 250-refereed articles in journals ranging from Science to the Quarterly Journal of Economics. He is an active advocate of agricultural biotechnology, engaging in public debates on issues surrounding genetically modified technologies and intellectual property. He is a frequent contributor to the Berkeley Blog,^[3] a blogging platform for UC Berkeley faculty.

In mid-1990s Zilberman, with fellow economists Vittorio Santaniello and Robert Evenson, established the International Consortium of Agricultural Biotechnology Research which aims to facilitate interaction among researchers and analysts.^[4] In 2001, he was the founding co-director of the Beahrs Environmental Leadership program,^[5] which provides training in environmental and natural resource science, policy, and leadership. Since 2012, the program has graduated over 500 alumni from over 100 countries. In 2012, with support from the Macarthur Foundation, he started the UC Berkeley Master of Development Practice (MDP) ^[6]] , a 2-year professional degree aimed at development practitioners.

References

1. ↑ "David Zilberman". 
2. ↑ "Faculty Profile" (PDF). 
3. ↑ "David Zilberman « The Berkeley Blog". 
4. ↑ "A Personal Memorial Vittorio Santaniello" (PDF). 
5. ↑ "Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program". 
6. ↑ "Master of Development Practice".