Distinguished Professor
David Zilberman holds the Robinson Chair in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department at UC Berkeley. He received the 2019 Wolf Prize in Agriculture and was elected a U.S. National Academy of Science 2019 member. A description of David’s work and his career appears here.
David served as the 2018-19 President of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA). He's a fellow of AAEA, AERE, and EAERE, among others, and has published in professional and popular outlets. He has over 400 referenced journal articles ranging from Science to ARE-Update and has edited 30 books. In addition, he has served as a Consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USDA, the World Bank, FAO, MARS, BP, and others. He co-founded the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program and is the academic director of the Berkeley MDP program.
David's research analyzes water, innovation, supply chain, agriculture, energy, and the environment. He has researched the economics and political economy of agricultural biotechnology and the potential of the bioeconomy. In addition, he has been working on water policy programs and the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Education
Tel Aviv University, Israel - B. A. Economics, Statistics
University of California at Berkeley - Ph.D.* Agricultural and Resource Economics
Selected Books
Dinar, Ariel, and David Zilberman, editors. The Economics and Management of Water and Drainage in Agriculture. Norwell, Massachusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
Lipper, Leslie, Nancy McCarthy, David Zilberman, Solomon Asfaw, Branca Giacomo, editors. Climate Smart Agriculture: Building Resilience to Climate Change. Natural Resource Management and Policy. New York: Springer, 2017.
Khanna, Madhu, and David Zilberman, eds. Handbook of Bioenergy Economics and Policy: Volume II: Modeling Land Use and Greenhouse Gas Implications. Vol. 40. Springer, 2017.
Antràs, Pol, and David Zilberman, eds. Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains. University of Chicago Press, 2023.
Kaplan, Scott, David W Roland-Holst, David Zilberman. “Enronmental Economics in the Modern Economy: Theory and Applications”. World Scientific. 2024.
Papers:
Recent
Barrett, Christopher B., Thomas Reardon, Johan Swinnen, and David Zilberman. "Agri-food value chain revolutions in low-and middle-income countries." Journal of Economic Literature 60, no. 4 (2022): 1316-1377.
D’Odorico, Paolo, Davide Danilo Chiarelli, Lorenzo Rosa, Alfredo Bini, David Zilberman, and Maria Cristina Rulli. "The global value of water in agriculture." Proceedings of the national academy of sciences 117, no. 36 (2020): 21985-21993.
Hochman, Gal, and David Zilberman. "Optimal environmental taxation in response to an environmentally-unfriendly political challenger." Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 106 (2021): 102407.
Kaplan, Scott, Jacob Lefler, and David Zilberman. "The political economy of COVID‐19." Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 44, no. 1 (2022): 477-488.
Khanna, Madhu, Deepak Rajagopal, and David Zilberman. "Lessons learned from US experience with biofuels: Comparing the hype with the evidence." Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 15, no. 1 (2021): 67-86.
Mishra, Ashok, Ellen Bruno, and David Zilberman. "Compound natural and human disasters: Managing drought and COVID-19 to sustain global agriculture and food sectors." Science of the Total Environment 754 (2021): 142210.
Reardon, Thomas, Amir Heiman, Liang Lu, Chandra SR Nuthalapati, Rob Vos, and David Zilberman. "“Pivoting” by food industry firms to cope with COVID‐19 in developing regions: E‐commerce and “copivoting” delivery intermediaries." Agricultural Economics 52, no. 3 (2021): 459-475.
Trilnick, Itai, and David Zilberman. "Microclimate Engineering for Climate Change Adaptation in Agriculture: The Case of California Pistachios." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 103, no. 4 (2021): 1342-1358.
Van Eenennaam, Alison L., Felipe De Figueiredo Silva, Josephine F. Trott, and David Zilberman. "Genetic engineering of livestock: the opportunity cost of regulatory delay." Annual Review of Animal Biosciences 9 (2021): 453-478.
Wuepper, David, Shira Bukchin‐Peles, David Just, and David Zilberman. "Behavioral agricultural economics." Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy (2023).
Zilberman, David, Thomas Reardon, Jed Silver, Liang Lu, and Amir Heiman. "From the laboratory to the consumer: Innovation, supply chain, and adoption with applications to natural resources." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119, no. 23 (2022): e2115880119.
Prol, Javier López, Karl W. Steininger, and David Zilberman. "The cannibalization effect of wind and solar in the California wholesale electricity market." Energy Economics 85 (2020): 104552.
Highlights
Babcock, Bruce A., P. G. Lakshminarayan, JunJie Wu, and David Zilberman. "Targeting tools for the purchase of environmental amenities." Land economics (1997): 325-339.
Hochman, Eithan, and David Zilberman. "Examination of environmental policies using production and pollution microparameter distributions." Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society (1978): 739-760.
Carey, Janis M., and David Zilberman. "A model of investment under uncertainty: modern irrigation technology and emerging markets in water." American Journal of Agricultural Economics84, no. 1 (2002): 171-183.
Caswell, Margriet, and David Zilberman. "The choices of irrigation technologies in California." American journal of agricultural economics 67, no. 2 (1985): 224-234.
Caswell, Margriet F., and David Zilberman. "The effects of well depth and land quality on the choice of irrigation technology." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 68, no. 4 (1986): 798-811.
Feder, Gershon, Richard E. Just, and David Zilberman. "Adoption of agricultural innovations in developing countries: A survey." Economic development and cultural change 33, no. 2 (1985): 255-298.
Just, Richard E., and David Zilberman. "Stochastic structure, farm size and technology adoption in developing agriculture." Oxford Economic Papers 35, no. 2 (1983): 307-328.
Lichtenberg, Erik, and David Zilberman. "The econometrics of damage control: why specification matters." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 68, no. 2 (1986): 261-273.
Qaim, Matin, and David Zilberman. "Yield effects of genetically modified crops in developing countries." Science 299, no. 5608 (2003): 900-902.
Rajagopal, Deepak, Steven E. Sexton, David Roland-Holst, and David Zilberman. "Challenge of biofuel: filling the tank without emptying the stomach?." Environmental Research Letters 2, no. 4 (2007): 044004.
Lichtenberg, Erik, and David Zilberman. "The welfare economics of price supports in US agriculture." The American Economic Review 76, no. 5 (1986): 1135-1141.
Sunding, David, and David Zilberman. "The agricultural innovation process: research and technology adoption in a changing agricultural sector." Handbook of agricultural economics 1 (2001): 207-261.
Lichtenberg, Erik, and David Zilberman. "Efficient regulation of environmental health risks." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 103, no. 1 (1988): 167-178..
Wolf Prize Laurate 2019 Agriculture.
Member United States National Academy of Sciences 2019
President of Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, 2018-2019.
Member, European Academy of Sciences and Arts, November 2016-present.
Agricultural & Applied Economics Association,
Fellow (1998)
Publication of Enduring Quality Award (2005),(2010)
Quality of Communication Award (2010), (2015) Honorary Mention (2015), Outstanding journal articles Choices (2010)
Quality of Research Discovery Award (1990), (2002), Honorary Mention (1984),Outstanding Review of Agricultural Economics Article (2007)
Fellow, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (2007)
Fellow, Association of European Environmental and Resource Economists (2021)
Honorary Life Member International Association of Agricultural Economists
University of California at Berkeley, College of Natural Resources,
Career Achievement Award, (2011), Citation Award (2007).
Alumnus of the Week (January 27, 2003).
