Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge MA	MPP	1982	Public Policy
Carleton College, Northfield MN	BA	1979	Political Science/International Relations

Lisa A. Robinson’s research and teaching focus on the conduct of benefit-cost analysis, particularly for policies with outcomes that cannot be fully valued using market measures. She has led numerous assessments of the costs, benefits, and other impacts of environmental, health, and safety policies and regulations, developed related methods, and drafted guidance documents. She co-edited the National Academies book, "Valuing Health for Regulatory Cost-Effectiveness Analysis," led the creation benefit-cost analysis guidelines for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations and global public health interventions, and developed approaches for estimating the value of mortality risk reductions (the value per statistical life, VSL) for several government agencies and other organizations. She has explored numerous other methodological issues, including the implications of behavioral economics and happiness (subjective wellbeing) research for benefit-cost analysis, approaches for addressing the distribution of impacts across advantaged and disadvantaged groups, and ethical concerns. She applies these methods in high-, middle-, and low-income settings. Her work addresses a variety of policy issues, including responses to vaccine mandates and to hazard warnings as well as the health impacts of climate change. She has served as a member of several expert advisory groups, including those convened by U.S. Federal government agencies, OECD, the World Health Organization, and other organizations. 

Ms. Robinson serves as Deputy Director of the Center for Health Decision Science is affiliated with the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis as well as the Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She was previously a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government as well as an Affiliate Fellow of its Regulatory Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a past President of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis and served as a Councilor of the Society for Risk Analysis as well as Chair of its Economics and Benefits Analysis Specialty Group. She is on the Editorial Boards of Risk Analysis and the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis.

For related publications, see: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/lisa-robinson/publications/

• Benefit-cost analysis
• Value per statistical life (VSL)
• Regulatory policy
• Nonmarket valuation
• Cost-effectiveness analysis
• Economic evaluation
• Policy analysis
• Cost-Benefit Analysis