The Research Group on Environmental, Natural Resource and Applied Economics Studies (REES)

REES is a network of researchers affiliated with universities in and outside Colombia. From 2016 to 2024 REES was the EfD Colombia center at the Department of Economics at Los Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia. During those years, REES received financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) through signed agreements between Los Andes University and the University of Gothenburg. This financial support from SIDA was crucial to strengthening REES members’ research agendas and for their research results to become nationally visible. It also allowed REES to include new national and international researchers. REES members have published their research results in international academic journals such as Ecological Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Research Letters, among other.   

REES was created in June 2015 to articulate the research agenda of environmental economists from Colombian Universities and enhance the visibility of their research results. Currently, REES has 23 researchers. In Colombia, researchers are affiliated with these universities: Los Andes University, Rosario University, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, National University, and Antioquia University in Medellin. Outside Colombia, researchers are affiliated with these universities: University of Chile (Chile), George Mason University (USA), Heriot-Watt University (Scotland), Goettingen University (Germany), and University of Girona (Spain). In 2021 -2024 REES hosted the Women on Environmental Economics for Development (WinEED) collaborative program. Since January 2025 REES has become an EfD partner center.

Los Andes University, which hosts REES at the Department of Economics, is one of the leading universities in Latin America in education and research. The member universities of REES have undergraduate, master’s, and doctorate programs in environmental economics and related study fields that educate hundreds of students.  

Goals of REES

REES seeks to contribute policy-relevant research in the following research lines: protection of natural resources, environmental governance, and impacts of consumption and production activities. It aims to be a mentoring group for: a) Learning in environmental and applied economics of bachelor, master, and Ph.D. students; b) Stimulating research ideas that become concrete, solid, and robust policy-relevant research projects; c) Promoting the knowledge usage by other institutions of REES’s research results.

Researchers who are active in the network:

  1. Sandra Aguilar-Gómez
  2. Santiago Arango Aramburo
  3. Claudia Aravena
  4. Yady Marcela Barrero Amortegui
  5. Jorge Alexander Bonilla
  6. Juan Camilo Cárdenas
  7. Fernando Carriazo
  8. Brigitte Castañeda Rodríguez
  9. Jorge H. García
  10. Julián Gomez
  11. Juliana Helo
  12. Marcela Ibañez
  13. Jorge Higinio Maldonado
  14. César Mantilla
  15. Lina Moros
  16. Jorge Marco Renau
  17. Nathaly Rivera
  18. Luz Angela Rodríguez
  19. Ximena Rueda
  20. Carlos Adrián Saldarriaga
  21. Diego Valderrama
  22. Maria Alejandra Vélez
  23. Clara Inés Villegas Palacio

 

Contact information

Professor Jorge Alexander Bonilla, Department of Economics, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

E-mail: jobonill@uniandes.edu.co

Phone: +(57) 601 332 44 93 ext 3020

Web address

https://reesefdcolombia.uniandes.edu.co/

 

                     

Updated: 20 February 2025