Randall Bluffstone is Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Economics and the Environment at Portland State University. His research and teaching interests focus on environmental and resource economics, including pollution policies, climate change and REDD+, deforestation in low-income countries and the economics of suburban sprawl. He is the author of several papers, book chapters and three edited books, most recently Forest Tenure Reform in Asia and Africa: Local Control for Improved Livelihoods, Forest Management, and Carbon Sequestration with Elizabeth J. Z. Robinson, which was published by Taylor & Francis/RFF Press in November 2014.
In 2006 to 2007 Professor Bluffstone lived in Ethiopia and conducted collaborative research related to land use and forestry policies. Prior to coming to Portland State, he taught at the University of Redlands and until September 1999 was deputy director of the International Environment Program at the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) at Harvard University. While at Harvard, Bluffstone directed HIID’s environmental policy program in Central Asia and from 1994 to 1997 served as senior environmental policy advisor to the Government of Lithuania.
Randy Bluffstone received his Ph.D. in economics from Boston University in 1993 and from 1983 - 85 was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal.