One keynote speaker at EfD’s Annual Meeting this year will challenge how we think about chemical regulation and the unequal global landscape of environmental policy. Meet Professor Jessica Coria, a researcher with decades of experience at the intersection of environmental economics, public policy, and interdisciplinary research.
Jessica Coria has been part of the EfD network almost since its inception and is currently a research professor at EfD’s new partner institution, ESGO at Aarhus University in Denmark.
Her keynote will explore the challenges in regulating chemicals, a field where science, policy, and power dynamics collide.
Drawing on her research into how environmental regulations are shaped and implemented, Jessica Coria will address some uncomfortable but important questions: How does the origin of scientific data influence regulatory decisions? Whose knowledge gets included or excluded from policymaking? And how do these decisions impact countries differently across the Global North and South?
Studies by companies are easy to implement
“There’s a tendency to rely on studies specifically designed to meet the formal requirements of regulation, often conducted by the chemical companies themselves,” she explains.
“These studies are often structured to align with what regulators ask for, making them readily usable. In contrast, academic research, aimed at publishing in science journals, has more diffuse policy implications, and as a result, is often overlooked.”
This creates a bias in both the information base and the regulatory response.
“We risk missing important risks because they fall outside the standard testing framework,” she says. For example, regulatory regimes may require testing on specific organisms or exposure pathways, but that leaves large knowledge gaps regarding other ecosystems or health effects.
Banned chemicals exported to the Global South
Her keynote will also touch on the global inequalities embedded in chemical regulation. While many hazardous substances are banned in wealthier countries, production often continues, with exports to lower-income countries.
Yet Jessica Coria is not limited to critique. Her research is also solution-oriented, focused on the optimal design of environmental policy instruments. Much of her current work investigates how data gaps and information biases affect both the likelihood of policy adoption and the structure of those policies. Her approach is both theoretical and applied, ranging from formal modeling to policy-relevant case studies.
Many benefits of interdisciplinary research
She is now excited to be an Associate Fellow at The Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, AIAS, where she is engaged in highly interdisciplinary work alongside philosophers, chemists, biologists, and engineers, among others. This, she says, has been a very enriching experience. “Environmental problems don’t fit neatly into disciplinary boxes. Economics places a strong emphasis on methods, but if you stay only within the discipline, you risk missing out on other valuable approaches, data sources, and ways of framing questions,” she explains. She adds that while some fields—like labor economics—benefit from rich registry data, many environmental issues, such as chemical pollution or biodiversity loss, often depend on observational data and lack the kind of structured datasets commonly used in economics. Collaborating with other disciplines not only broadens the methodological toolkit but also helps keep the focus on big, real-world problems that no single discipline can address on its own.
“This makes interdisciplinary collaboration very beneficial,” she says.
“By integrating insights, data, and tools from natural sciences and other fields, we can build a more comprehensive understanding and find creative, workable solutions.”
From Santiago to Gothenburg
Jessica Coria’s academic journey began in Santiago, Chile. She credits EfD with playing a pivotal role in her early career. As a young researcher, she received support from the Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Economics Program (LACEEP), which was funded by EfD. She connected with key scholars in the field and first encountered the collaborative, problem-oriented ethos that still drives her work today. She met Fredrik Carlsson and Thomas Sterner from the University of Gothenburg, found that they shared a lot of ideas, and they encouraged her to apply for a postdoc position at the University of Gothenburg.
She stayed for 17 years in Gothenburg, conducted research, and eventually became a mentor and part of EfD’s Research Committee.
“EfD is an opportunity to meet many researchers who do interesting things, and I learned to see the world from different perspectives. I especially value its focus on real-world problems—not just publishing in elite academic journals—and the belief that research should ultimately be useful in improving society. That mission resonates deeply with me.”
Broad range of research
Today, her research spans topics including chemical risk, e-waste, biodiversity offsetting, climate adaptation, and the incentives embedded in environmental policy instruments. She has led major projects supported by national and international funding bodies, including RJ and FORMAS, and has published widely in leading journals in environmental economics and beyond.
Outside of academia, Professor Coria balances her research with a lively family life, which includes four teenagers (two children and two “bonus children”), two cats, a dog, and—when time allows—running and swimming.
Her keynote at the Annual Meeting promises to be both thought-provoking and deeply relevant to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in the real-world impact of environmental regulation. It will also offer a valuable perspective on how interdisciplinary approaches can enhance environmental economics, not by replacing economic theory, but by complementing it with broader insights and more diverse evidence.
By: Petra Hansson