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Chi Ta

Assistant Professor
Chi Ta
312 Hutcheson Hall
Blacksburg, VA 24061
chita@vt.edu
(540) 231-8908
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Chi Ta is an energy and environmental economist interested in policy evaluation, policy design, and incentive mechanisms to promote conservation and sustainability. She also studies policies to improve disadvantaged populations' economic and environmental well-being. She combines different theoretical and empirical strategies in her research, such as general equilibrium modeling, optimal control theories, randomized control trials, and natural or policy experiments.

Expertise: Energy, Environmental, Public, and Development Economics

Education:

  • Ph.D. Applied Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA, 2021
  • M.S. Applied Economics, Illinois State University, USA, 2015           
  • M.S. International Business, Macquarie University, Australia, 2010           
  • B.S. International Business and Economics, Foreign Trade University, Vietnam, 2008

List of currently funded projects:

  • Using contests to deliver cost-effective energy conservation, funded by King Climate Action Initiative  J-PAL, 2022-2024
  • Enhanced Salience of Nonlinear Pricing and Energy Conservation, funded by International Growth Center, 2022-2023
  • Do energy audit mandates work? An empirical analysis using 12-year firm-level panel data, funded by Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries, 2022-2023

Instructor

  • Microeconometrics (Ph.D. students), Virginia Tech, Fall 2021
  • Energy Economics (undergraduate), Virginia Tech, Spring 2022

Professional appointments:

  • Assistant Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Virginia Tech (2021 - Present)
  • Affiliated Faculty, Center for Advanced Innovation in Agriculture, Virginia Tech (2021 - Present)
  • Affiliated Faculty, Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment, Virginia Tech (2021 - Present)

Award:

  • W. I. Brockson and Fay Willerton Brockson Fellowship, UIUC, 2016       
  • Scott M. Elliott Graduate Scholarship, Illinois State University, 2015
  • Dept. of Accounting & Finance Prize for Academic Excellence, Macquarie University, 2010

Publications:

Fullerton, Don and Chi Ta. 2020. Costs of energy efficiency mandates can reverse the sign of rebound. Journal of Public Economics (188): 1-17

Fullerton, Don and Chi Ta. 2019. Environmental policy on the back of an envelope: A Cobb-Douglas model is not just a teaching tool. Energy Economics (84): 1-14

Fullerton, Don and Chi Ta. 2017. Public finance in a nutshell: A Cobb-Douglas teaching tool for general equilibrium tax incidence and excess burden. National Tax Journal (70): 155-170

Ohler, Adrienne and Chi Ta. 2015. Modeling impacts from EPA’s clean power plan and building block 3 for renewable energy. The Electricity Journal (28): 72-82