My research is motivated by society’s need to transition to a sustainable energy future. This transition will require the development and adoption of renewable energy technologies and a shift to more efficient use of energy. My current research examines policies to incentivize renewable energy, and the environmental, economic and distributional impacts of these policies. I am also studying the distribution of power outage experiences in the Unites States and the impact of electricity reliability on various health outcomes.

Working Papers and In-Progress Research

• Disparities in Power Outage Experience in the United States, with Dan Ai, Zeal Shah and Jay Taneja
• The Role of Risk and Time Preferences in Household Decision to Adopt Solar Panels, with Rong Rong and Rui Wang
• Power Outages, Heat and Mortality, with Dan Ai and Jamie Mullins
• Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change: Implications for fertilizer use and water quality, with Jayash Paudel

Grants

• SBS Research Support Grant. Investigating the mortality impacts of power outages in the context of climate change, 2024, Christine L. Crago (PI). Amount ~$10,000
• National Science Foundation, “NRT: Enhancing resiliency and increasing equity in the transition to a sustainable energy future,” 2020-2025, Matthew Lackner (PI), Erin Baker (Co-PI), Christine L. Crago (Co-PI), Robert DeConto (Co-PI), Golbon Zakeri (Co-PI). Amount ~ $2.7 million
• National Science Foundation, “GCR: Transition to a sustainable energy future,” 2020-2022, Matthew Lackner (PI), Erin Baker (Co-PI), Christine L. Crago (Co-PI), Krista Harper (Co-PI), Prashant Shenoy (Co-PI). Amount ~ $1.5 million
• UMass Institute for Social Science Research and UMass Clean Energy Center, “Where do the benefits of solar market development go? Distributional impacts of the economic rents from Massachusetts solar programs,” 2019-2020, Christine L. Crago (PI), Dwayne Breger (Co-PI). Amount: ~$20,000
• United States Department of Agriculture – Hatch Research Project, “Understanding the choice between leasing and owning for residential solar systems,” 2018-2022, Rong Rong (PI) and Christine L. Crago (Co-PI).  Amount: ~$36,000
• United States Department of Agriculture – National Institute of Food and Agriculture, “Leveraging on-farm field experiment data to examine the efficiency of regulation to limit agricultural pollutants,” 2016-2020, Christine L. Crago (PI). Amount: $126,458 (Sub-contract award from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, David S. Bullock (PI), Total award: $4 million)
• UMass Clean Energy Extension and City of Holyoke Renewable Energy Development Plan, “Incentivizing solar installations: Lessons for design and implementation,” 2015-2016, Ben Weil (PI), Christine L. Crago (Senior Personnel). Amount: $43,691
• UMass Clean Energy Extension and Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, “Assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of incentive policies for commercial-scale solar PV in Massachusetts and the Northeast,” 2015-2019, Christine L. Crago (PI). Amount: $23,942
• UMass Faculty Research/ Healey Endowment Grant, “A field experiment to evaluate the impacts of incentives for energy efficiency and conservation,” 2014-2015, Christine L. Crago (PI). Amount: $14,000