Faculty
Christopher Knittel is the Associate Dean for Climate and Sustainability, the George P. Shultz Professor and a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Prior to MIT Sloan, Knittel taught at the University of California, Davis, and at Boston University. His research focuses on industrial organization, environmental economics, and applied econometrics.
Knittel is an associate editor of The American Economic Journal— Economic Policy, The Journal of Industrial Economics, and the Journal of Energy Markets. His research has appeared in The American Economic Review, The Review of Economics and Statistics, The Journal of Industrial Economics, The Energy Journal, and other academic journals. He also is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Productivity, Industrial Organization, and Energy and Environmental Economics groups.
Knittel holds a BA in economics and political science from California State University, Stanislaus; an MA in economics from the University of California, Davis; and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
http://knittel.world
Senga, Juan Ramon L., Audun Botterud, John E. Parsons, S. Drew Story, and Christopher R. Knittel. Nature Energy. Forthcoming.
Clausing, Kimberly A., Christopher R. Knittel, and Catherine Wolfram. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Forthcoming.
Knittel, Christopher R., and Samuel Stolper. The Economic Journal Vol. 135, No. 672 (2025): 2377-2401. NBER Working Paper.
Comincioli, Nicola, Christopher R. Knittel, Elsa A. Olivetti, Ilenia G. Romani1, and Sergio Vergalli. Annual Review of Resource Economics Vol. 17, (2025).
Batlle, Carlos, Peter Heller, Christopher R. Knittel, and Tim Schittekatte. Science Advances Vol. 10, No. 41 (2024): 1-10. Download Paper.
Armstrong, Les, Alexa Canaan, Christopher R. Knittel, Gilbert Metcalf, and Tim Schittekatte. Science Vol. 385, No. 6704 (2024): 31-33.
Data centers that shift workload to different times of day save money, but the environmental impact depends on the local grid.
Climate policy expert Christopher Knittel handicaps the likelihood of tariffs, cuts to IRA subsidies, and a carbon tax under the new administration.
"If I had my druthers, we would get rid of net-metering, have a smart way to price electricity imports and exports, and then get rid of the cap," said Christopher Knittel, associate dean for climate and sustainability. "But what I worry about in the absence of a cap is a bunch of wealthy towns building a lot of solar and then transferring their transmission and distribution costs to the poorer towns that don't have the means to build as much solar."
Studies of the economic impacts of climate change often look at long-term, national costs. A new BPEA study by professors Christopher Knittel and Catherine Wolfram takes a different approach, focusing on the current household level costs attributable to changing weather. Professor Wolfram joined the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity to discuss the research.
In 2023, research by Christopher Knittel, associate dean for climate and sustainability, and co-authors projected that federal tax credits, combined with efforts to install charging stations on highways nationwide, would increase EV adoption by 18% through the end of the decade. "Those are customers that are buying it because the tax credit exists, and if you pull it away, they're gonna go back to the internal combustion engine vehicle," Knittel said.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday that rising electricity prices are what he "worries about most" as Americans face high power bills. A recent consumer price index report found electricity prices were growing at more than double the rate of inflation. "Residential retail electricity prices are set with basically a lag," said Christopher Knittel, associate dean for climate and sustainability. "Trump's effects on the rate changes won't take place until after the midterms."
