Past Event
Seminar

Energy Policy Seminar: Putting a Price Cap on Russian Oil

Open to the Public

A novel price cap on Russian-origin crude oil, implemented by the G7 countries, is set to take effect on December 5.

Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Catherine Wolfram, Visiting Professor at Harvard Kennedy School, and Ben Harris, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury. Wolfram will begin the seminar by overviewing the price cap policy. Then, Harris will discuss the policy in a fireside chat with HKS Professor Joe Aldy. Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Registration: In-person attendance is limited to current Harvard ID holders. No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis.

Members of the public are welcome to attend virtually via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link. 

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Ben Harris and Catherine Wolfram

Speakers

Speakers

Catherine Wolfram is a Visiting Professor at Harvard Kennedy School, on leave from UC Berkeley.

​From March 2021 to October 2022, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate and Energy Economics at the U.S. Treasury. ​At UC Berkeley, she is the Cora Jane Flood Professor of Business Administration. From 2019 to 2021, she served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Haas School of Business.  

​Before leaving for government services, she was the Program Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Environment and Energy Economics Program, Faculty Director of The E2e Project, a research organization focused on energy efficiency and a research affiliate at the Energy Institute at Haas. She was also an affiliated faculty member of in the Agriculture and Resource Economics department and the Energy and Resources Group at Berkeley.

Wolfram has published extensively on the economics of energy markets. Her work has analyzed rural electrification programs in the developing world, energy efficiency programs in the US, the effects of environmental regulation on energy markets and the impact of privatization and restructuring in the US and UK. She is currently implementing several randomized controlled trials to evaluate energy programs in the U.S., Ghana, and Kenya.

She received a PhD in Economics from MIT in 1996 and an AB from Harvard in 1989. Before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she was an Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard.

Ben Harris is Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and a counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury.

Prior to joining the Treasury Department, Harris was the Executive Director of the Kellogg Public-Private Initiative and a research associate professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, in addition to serving as the chief economist to the evidence-based policy organization Results for America. He also founded and was president of the economic consulting group Cherrydale Strategies. 

Earlier in his career, he served as the chief economist and economic adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden, was the policy director of The Hamilton Project, a fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, and deputy director of the Retirement Security Project.

In addition, Harris was a senior research associate with the Urban Institute and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Harris worked at the White House as a senior economist with the Council of Economic Advisers, where he specialized in fiscal policy and retirement security. He has also served as a research economist at the Brookings Institution and as a senior economist with the Budget Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Harris has also taught as an adjunct professor at the policy schools at the University of Maryland and Georgetown University.

Harris' primary areas of focus are tax, budget and retirement security. He has published a variety of papers and policy briefs related to topics in public finance and was regularly cited in media reports related to fiscal policy.

He holds a Ph.D. in economics from George Washington University, in addition to a master's degree in economics from Cornell University and a master's degree in quantitative methods from Columbia University. He earned his BA in economics at Tufts University. In 2000, Harris was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Namibia.

Recording