May 2009

New Faculty

Dr. Steven Wu was an associate professor at The Ohio State University before joining the Purdue Faculty. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of Applied Contract Theory and Incentive Systems, Applied Microeconomics, Experimental Economics, Regulation and Public Policy related to Agricultural Contracting. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley in Agricultural and Resource Economics in December 2001.

Much of his work centers around contract theory and applied contracting issues in agriculture. His current interests are in contract regulation and contract legislation in agriculture; the empirical testing of incentive systems; and the design of optimal pricing, risk sharing, and incentive schemes for marketing, production, and supply contracting. Current projects include the design of optimal risk sharing contracts for lignocellulosic ethanol crops and the testing of relational pricing mechanisms for energy products.

He is also interested in the study of informal incentives used by individuals and organizations to manage performance and regulate economic activity. Wu is a faculty affiliate in the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State, a Research Fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany, and a member of the Economic Design Network in the Department of Economics at the University of Melbourne.

Ben Gramig joined the Agricultural Economics Department in February 2008. He completed his PhD in agricultural economics at Michigan State University, his M.S. in agricultural economics and his B.S. in Natural Resource Conservation and Management are from the University of Kentucky. Ben worked previously in the Kentucky Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy on diversification away from tobacco and coordinated the Farm Services Agency, state Conservation Districts and the Kentucky chapter of The Nature Conservancy to establish the $120 Million Green River Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.

Ben’s research and teaching interests are primarily in the area of natural resource and environmental economics. He has worked on issues surrounding livestock disease management and plans to continue this work at Purdue. Ben’s interests are largely motivated by public policy and striking a balance between economic achievement and environmental sustainability. To this end, he is very interested in emerging markets for environmental goods and services that agriculture can supply to society.

His interests in livestock health and natural resources management lend themselves well to interdisciplinary collaboration and Ben is currently working with colleagues across the College of Agriculture on a variety of projects involving the environmental implications of 2nd Generation Biofuels, carbon sequestration in agricultural landscapes and economic analysis of ecosystem services from agriculture.

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