R. J. Briggs

R. J. Briggs is an economist at the RAND Corporation. His research focuses on cost estimation for disaster recovery, catastrophic risk and public policy, and predictive modeling for long-range strategic planning. Briggs has worked on diverse RAND projects from modeling the returns to education to measuring the efficacy of US Naval communications networks.

Prior to rejoining RAND, Briggs served as senior economist at Praedicat, Inc., a business dedicated to understanding catastrophic liability risk. He is deeply knowledgeable on the history of mass litigation in the U.S., with special attention to asbestos, MTBE, and PFOA. His projects included model development for industrial catastrophe risk, stochastic liability allocation, stochastic policy triggers, mass environmental contamination risk, and catastrophic scenario construction. Formerly an assistant professor of energy and environmental economics at Penn State, Briggs conducted research related to electricity markets, optimal resource use, and environmental policy. His teaching portfolio included course offerings in energy and environmental economics (undergraduate and graduate), decision-making under uncertainty, and project economics for energy markets.