317 Classroom-Office Building
1994 Buford Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108

612-625-7728 (Phone)
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kweaster@umn.edu

K. William Easter is a native Californian who received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of California-Davis before completing his Ph.D. degree at Michigan State University. He is a professor of applied economics and has been on the faculty of the University of Minnesota since 1970 and Director of the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy from July 1999 to June 2003. His research interests include resource economics, economic development and environmental economics, with a special focus on water and land problems and resource pricing issues.

Through 1972, Dr. Easter led a Ford Foundation program in India to help the central government design a new approach to regional agricultural development planning and help establish a research program on the economics of water. After returning to Minnesota he conducted research on: the constraints to regional development, the impacts of soil erosion (on both downstream interest and farm productivity), the magnitude of groundwater pollution caused by agriculture, the cost of municipal waste management, the nonmetropolitan residential demand for electric power and municipal water, agricultural development for Native Americans, and the effect of government policy on wetlands.

In 1978 Dr. Easter was a visiting professor at India’s Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. From 1979 to 1983 he headed the University of Minnesota/Colorado University/U.S.-AID project on water management and irrigation policy in India, Thailand, Egypt and Pakistan. The following year he headed a University of Minnesota team that reviewed Thailand’s watershed management programs. While on sabbatical at the East-West Center (1984-85), he worked on watershed management problems in Asia and the Pacific, and completed a U.S.-AID study on the recurring costs of irrigation in four Asian countries.

Dr. Easter has continued his research on irrigation and water management in Asia, working with colleagues in India and elsewhere during the late 1980s and 1990s. He led a U.S.-AID team in 1987 that evaluated two Indian agricultural universities (part of a larger ICAR study). During 1989 he was on a team that evaluated a U.S.-AID program designed to improve irrigation management in Nepal, and then on single-quarter leave at the East-West Center studying the transaction cost of water management. From October 1991 to September 1993, while he worked in the World Bank’s Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, he spearheaded their efforts to write a water resources management policy paper. The policy paper was approved by the Bank Board and published in September of 1993. During this time he also completed several papers on water resources management and initiated a study of water markets in Chile (completed in 1995). From 1998 to 2001 he was a member of the expert panel reviewing Bangladesh’s national water planning effort. On July 1, 1999 he became Director of the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Minnesota for four years.

Dr. Easter has published widely in professional journals and has coauthored, edited, or co-edited 10 books dealing with a range of natural resources and environmental economics issues, but with a focus on water resources. His most recent effort is an edited volume on the ECONOMICS OF WATER SCARCITY: INSTITUTIONS, INSTRUMENTS AND POLICIES FOR MANAGING SCARCITY.

Some of Dr. Easter's current research concerns include:

1.  Nonpoint pollution of surface water
2.  The use of benefit/cost analysis in environmental decision making
3.  Water management and market mechanisms for allocating water
4.  Economic incentives for conflict and cooperation in transboundary water resource      use

In 2006 Dr. Easter chaired the external expert panel which conducted the third External Program and Management Review (EPMR) for the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). These reviews are conducted every five years and are a key guide for the new IWMI Director General and for IWMI’s research agenda.