Ms. Kate Emans Sims :: Sustainability Science Program :: Center for International Development

Sustainability Science Program

Ms. Kate Emans Sims
Center for International Development
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
506A Rubenstein Building
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
Tel: (1) 617-496-0426
Fax: (1) 617-496-8753
Email: kresims "at" fas.harvard.edu
Group affiliation: Doctoral Fellow

Kate Emans Sims is a Doctoral Fellow in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard�s Center for International Development and at the Environmental Economics Program at Harvard University. She is a PhD candidate in the Program in Political Economy and Government, which is jointly supported by the Kennedy School of Government, the Economics Department, and the Government Department. Her work explores how institutions and policies shape the interaction between land conservation and economic development outcomes. Her primary dissertation research considers how protected forest areas have affected village and sub-district economic growth in Thailand. In addition, she is working on projects about the effectiveness of local policies and politics for preserving green space in Massachusetts communities and on how insights from the literature on incentive-based mechanisms can be applied to payments for ecosystem services schemes. She has worked as a researcher for organizations including the Stockholm Environment Institute-Boston, Verite, and the Piper Jaffray Social Equity Investment Group, and also taught science and geography in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Sims is a recipient of the James and Cathleen Stone Fellowship in Environmental Economics (2002) and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2004-2007). She holds a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University.

Environment and Development Outcomes of Land Conservation Policies.� The conservation or restoration of land that provides valuable environmental benefits is a policy issue of significant current concern.� Sims� research examines the possible effects, intended and unintended, of policy tools for land conservation, including protected areas, local land use regulations, community-based forestry and payments for ecosystem services.� Her dissertation consists of three essays, each of which uses empirical evidence to evaluate actual or potential policy outcomes relating to land conservation.� The first essay considers how local economic development in Northern Thailand has been changed by protected area status and explores possible mechanisms through which such status has affected communities.� The second essay asks whether, and with what magnitude, local wetlands bylaws in towns and cities in Eastern Massachusetts have slowed the rate of conversion from open space to developed land uses.� The third essay explores how internal and external factors may influence a community�s ability to overcome collective action problems associated with establishing and maintaining community forests, also using data from Northern Thailand. An additional project considers how the general lessons that have been learned about incentive-based mechanisms for environmental policy can be applied to Payments for Ecosystem Services programs (with Kelsey Jack and Carolyn Kousky, ARER, forthcoming).