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11:00-12:15 Salon E
Hear from two outstanding practitioners about the role of climate exchanges in reducing pollution.
Richard Sandor's slides (PDF, 39 K)
Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, Chief Economist, Ford Motor Company, moderator
Charles R. Plott
Professor of Economics and Political Science
California Institute of Technology
Professor Plott's early work was on the theoretical aspects of social choice theory, voting and public economics. At the beginning of the 1970s he became interested in developing and applying laboratory methodologies. He has conducted extensive research on the behavioral foundations of economics and political science.
In the general area of public economics he created a methodology for applying laboratory methods to the study of non-market processes. The early applications include the discovery of the equilibration tendencies of committees, the power of the agenda, the importance of many different voting rules and procedural institutional features in dictating the outcomes of group deliberations. He was the first to identify the equilibration of markets with externalities and circumstances in which the classical “free riding” phenomena can be observed in the context of public goods provision. In market economics his work with Vernon Smith led to the discovery of the “posted price effect” and to the measurement of efficiency in experimental markets, both of which are central to the foundations of policy related experimental work on market institutions. The research in economics has opened new issues to laboratory investigation. His work was the first to explore the detailed influences of market microstructure on the price formation process. In complex system of markets he was the first to study the principles that govern information aggregation in markets, market stability, and the operations of multiple markets -- including general equilibrium, international trade, international finance, and how multiple financial markets respond to risk.
Much of his research has been devoted to the development and application of laboratory methods to policy issues in which existing institutions as well as potential new institutions were studied.
The Caltech Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Political Science, which he founded and directs, has been a major producer of laboratory technologies. These began with local area networked tools used in laboratories throughout the world and now to the development of internet technology for conducting large, worldwide experiments. Already experiments that use people from around the world participating in a single market have been successfully conducted.
Richard L. Sandor
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Chicago Climate Exchange
Richard L. Sandor is chairman and CEO of the Chicago Climate Exchange, a self-regulatory exchange that administers the world's first multi-national and multi-sector marketplace for reducing and trading greenhouse gas emissions . Dr. Sandor is also a research professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. While on sabbatical from the University of California, Berkeley in the early 1970s he served as Vice President and chief economist of the Chicago Board of Trade. It was at that time that he earned the reputation as the principal architect of the interest-rate futures market. Richard L. Sandor was honored by the City of Chicago and the Chicago Board of Trade for his contribution to the creation of financial futures and his universal recognition as the "father of financial futures".
Dr. Sandor held a variety of senior executive positions in the financial services industry at Drexel Burham Lambert, Kidder Peabody and Banque Indosuez. He has served on numerous committees and boards including the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE) and the International Advisory Board of the Marché à Terme International de France (MATIF). Dr. Sandor also serves as a board member of American Electric Power, Millennium Cell, IntercontinentalExchange, Sustainable Performance Group and of Bear Stearns Financial Products Inc. and its subsidiary Bear Stearns Trading Risk Management Inc.
In August 2002 Dr. Sandor was chosen by Time magazine as one of its "Heroes for the Planet" for his work as the founder of the Chicago Climate Exchange. In November 2004, Dr. Sandor was the recipient of an honorary degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa , by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) of Zurich, Switzerland for his pioneer work in the design and implementation of innovative and flexible market-based mechanisms to address environmental concerns. Dr. Sandor was born on September 7, 1941 and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the City University of New York, Brooklyn College, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota.
