Kathy Baylis

Biography

Kathy Baylis is a Professor in the department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She joined the department in 2020 after more than a decade in the department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois where she remains adjunct faculty. In 2001-2002, Kathy was the staff economist in charge of agriculture for the Council of Economic Advisors in the White House, and in the mid-1990s, she worked as Executive Secretary of the National Farmers Union in Canada. She earned her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2003, where she specialized in international agricultural policy and trade. Her research evaluates agricultural, conservation and trade policies and their effect on environmental and food security outcomes. Professor Baylis has helped bring in over $30 million in grants, and has supervised over 30 graduate and post-doctoral students. She has published over 60 journal articles and book chapters on agriculture, trade, and environmental policy. She has also coauthored a textbook on U.S. and Canadian agricultural policy, which is used in universities on both sides of the border.

Research

A critical challenge is how to preserve the world’s overburdened ecosystems while producing enough food and fiber to meet the needs of 10 billion people. This challenge is compounded by climate change, which will intensify the frequency and severity of production shocks, increasing the vulnerability of the world’s most food-insecure households. My research applies rigorous econometric and machine learning methods to assess the consequences of policy efforts for forest conservation, global food security, and social welfare. To support my research, I have helped garner over $32 million in grants from sources such as the National Science Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the US Department of Agriculture. I have successfully trained 37 graduate students to produce over 60 journal articles, seven book chapters, and one textbook. My publications appear in the top field journals of environmental economics, agricultural economics, development economics and regional science.

Selected Publications

Gatti, N., K. Baylis and B. Crost. 2021. “Does irrigation reduce the impact of climate shocks on conflict? Evidence from Indonesia.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 103(1): 211-231.
Storm, H., K. Baylis, and T. Heckelei. 2020. “Machine Learning in Agricultural and Applied Economics.” European Review of Agricultural Economics 47(3): 849–892.

Kandpal, E., and K. Baylis. 2019. “The Social Lives of Married Women: Peer Effects in Female Autonomy and Children’s Food Consumption.” Journal of Development Economics 140(September): 26-43.

Baylis, K., L. Fan and L. Nogueira. 2019. “Agricultural Market Liberalization and Household Food Security in Rural China.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 101(1): 250–269.

Lentz, E., H. Michelson, K. Baylis and Y. Zhou. 2019. “An approach to improving early warning systems: Using spatially and temporally rich data to predict food insecurity crises in Malawi.” World Development 122, (October): 399-409.

Michler, J., K. Baylis, M. Arends-Kuenning and K. Mazvimavi. 2019. “Conservation Agriculture and Climate Resilience.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 93 (January): 148-169.

Börner, J., K. Baylis, E. Corbera, D. Ezzine-de-Blas, J. Honey-Rosés, U. M. Persson, S. Wunder. 2017. “The Effectiveness of Payments for Environmental Services.” World Development 96(August): 359-374.
Baylis, K., J. Honey-Rosés, J. Börner, E. Corbera, P. Ferraro, A. Pfaff, D. Ezzine de Blas, R. Lapeyre, M. Persson and S. Wunder. 2015. “Mainstreaming impact evaluation in nature conservation.” Conservation Letters doi: 10.1111/conl.12180.

Baylis, K., D. Fullerton and D. Karney. 2014. “Negative Leakage,” Journal of the Association of Environment and Resource Economists 1(1/2): 51-73.

Baylis, K., D. Fullerton and D. Karney. 2013. “Leakage, Welfare and Cost-Effectiveness of Carbon Policy,” American Economic Review (papers and proceedings) 103(3): 332-37.