Sanjay Patnaik

Dr. Sanjay Patnaik is the director of the Center on Regulation and Markets (CRM), the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development, and a senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. He also is a fellow for the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP) at Johns Hopkins University.

His research and policy analysis focus on climate and energy policies (specifically carbon pricing), business and government relations, corporate political strategy, globalization, and international business. He is particularly interested in carbon markets and emissions trading programs, their role in mitigating climate change, and their effect on firm behavior. He has conducted extensive research on the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and in more recent work, he has been focused on permitting reform and on how companies and governments can reduce their exposure to climate change by treating the problem as a risk management issue.

In his role as the director of the CRM, he has launched and developed a variety of new workstreams, including on Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies, the Future of Work, and Biosafety Policy. He has extensive experience with delivering on multi-year grants, producing long-form research papers and policy reports, organizing a wide range of public and private events, and with raising funds from diverse sources. He is frequently featured in major media outlets (e.g., Financial Times, BBC, WSJ, Reuters, ABC News, Politico, NPR, The Atlantic, Business Insider, CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg), regularly engages with decisionmakers in Congress and the executive branch, and routinely presents his work at global conferences, in policy forums, to policymakers, and at academic institutions.

Trained as an applied economist, Sanjay earned his doctorate at Harvard University, and also holds a master’s degree in economics and computer science and a master’s degree in business engineering and computer science, both from the Vienna University of Technology in Austria. Prior to starting at Brookings, he was a faculty member at the George Washington University and a visiting fellow and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. Sanjay’s research has been published in numerous scholarly journals and policy outlets, including the Journal of Environmental Management, the Journal of International Business Studies, Business Strategy & the Environment, and Business and Society. In addition, he has taught courses and guest lectures for executive managers as well as MBA and undergraduate students at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, the George Washington University, the Vienna University of Technology, and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.