Guillermo Herrera
Associate Professor of Economics
Fall 2009
- Natural Resource Economics and Policy (ECON 228)
- Microeconomics (ECON 255B)
- Microeconomics (ECON )
- Advanced independent Study and Honors in Economics (ECON 401)
| Phone | (207) 725-3496 |
| Title | Associate Professor |
| Department | ECONOMICS |
| Work Location | 110 Hubbard Hall |
| gherrera@bowdoin.edu |
Guillermo (Ta) Herrera came to Bowdoin at the start of the 2000-01 academic year. Along the way, he received his A.B. in Biology from Harvard (with emphases on sociobiology and population dynamics), worked in a human cancer genetics lab for two years, then attended graduate school at the University of Washington, receiving a M.S. in Quantitative Ecology & Resource Management, and M.A. and PhD degrees in Economics. Ta taught statistics in Seattle University’s Albers Business School and held a one-year appointment in the Economics Department at Western Washington University before coming to Bowdoin.
Ta’s research is in the area of natural resource and environmental economics, with an emphasis on renewable natural resources and the communities which harvest or otherwise derive value from them. Specifically, his recent research has examined policies for improving the way multispecies fisheries are managed, focusing on the use of regulations with a spatial component and on the strategic interactions between harvesters and regulators. His research has been published or accepted for publication in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Marine Resource Economics, the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science, and Marine Policy.
From 2003-2005, Ta was a Senior Research Fellow at the Marine Policy Center of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, where he studied the choice between centralized and local governance of common pool resources; the optimal integration of survey and harvester data into estimates of stock abundance; the economic value of biological research in the management of renewable resources; and the relative merits of marine protected areas and other arrangements for managing shared resource stocks. Ta was appointed Adjunct Scientist at the WHOI Marine Policy Center for a four-year term beginning April 2006.
Joint with Michael Neubert (Biology, WHOI) and Suzanne Lenhart (Mathematics, U. of Tennessee-Knoxville), Ta has funding from the National Science Foundation to develop “A spatial theory for renewable resource economics.” This work focuses on the economics of exploiting resources that diffuse continuously in space, so that their biological dynamics are best described by partial differential equations. This requires some novel mathematics, as the theory for optimal control of such systems is not well developed. Some of the research questions addressed in this project are under what circumstances closed areas are part of the optimal management portfolio in such resources; how beneficial spatially structured regulations are relative to aggregate controls (such as uniform taxes on effort or catch); and to what extent spatially structured regulation of renewable resources can mitigate the undesirable effects on unemployment levels -- the source of most political opposition to regulation.
Ta is also involved in a research project studying the response of commercial and recreational harvesters of shellfish to harmful algal blooms (HABs). In particular, he and his collaborators from WHOI are investigating the changes in behavior and subsequent economic benefits that would result from improved forecasts of the timing, location, and duration of these events.
Ta teaches microeconomics (principles and theory) as well as environmental and natural resource economics. He has supervised a number of independent study and honors students in their research of matters related to environmental regulation and natural resource use.
A retired (or at least hibernating) competitive cyclist, Ta is faculty advisor to the Bowdoin Cycling Club and on a good day can keep up with most of them. He lives in Brunswick with his wife Jerry, sons Oscar and Nicolás, and their boxer Brook. They are enjoying a gradual exploration of the Wilds of Maine and discovery of its prime fishing spots in their spare time. Their favorite summer conveyance is their tandem bicycle, with trailer in tow.
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