Staff profile

Ashar Aftab is an environmental economist specialising in agri-environmental land use issues, particularly agricultural externalities. He is interested in using choice experiments to design incentives that mitigate environmental problems in developing countries and/or made worse by climate change. He is an expert in modelling interdisciplinary agri-environmental catchment systems using nonlinear biophysical economic optimization. He is currently working on incentivising flood adaptation/mitigation measures and policies to control diffuse pollution using spatial targeting in agricultural landscapes.

Dr Aftab holds an MSc and PhD from the University of Edinburgh.

PhD Supervision

Prospective PhD students interested in researching interdisciplinary environmental issues are encouraged to contact him. 

• Agricultural economics
• Environmental economics
• Economics of climate change in developing countries
• Economics of diffuse/nonpoint water pollution and flooding

• Economics & Finance Department
• Environmental and Energy Economics

• 2019: EA Land Use Change 2018(£33050.00 from Environmental Agency)

Journal Article

• Bellelli, Francesco S. Scarpa, Riccardo & Aftab, Ashar (2023). An empirical analysis of participation in international environmental agreements. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
• Bellelli, Francesco S., Aftab, Ashar & Scarpa, Riccardo (2022). The Participation Dilemma: A Survey of the Empirical Literature on International Environmental Agreement Ratification. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy
• Aftab, Ashar, Ahmed, Ajaz & Scarpa, Riccardo (2021). Farm Households’ Perception of Weather Change and Flood Adaptations in Northern Pakistan. Ecological Economics 182(April 2021): 106882.
• Aftab, A., Hanley, N. & Baiocchi, G. (2017). Transferability of Policies to Control Agricultural Nonpoint Pollution in Relatively Similar Catchments. Ecological Economics 134: 11-21.
• Kampas, A., Melfou, K. & Aftab, A. (2013). Designing Regulatory Policies for Complex Externalities: The Case of Agricultural Pollution. Agricultural Economics Review 14(2).
• Aftab, A., Hanley, N. & Baiocchi, G. (2010). Integrated Regulation of Nonpoint Pollution: Combining Managerial Controls and Economic Instruments under Multiple Targets. Ecological Economics 70(1): 24-33.
• Aftab, A., Hanley, N. & Kampas, A. (2007). Co-ordinated environmental regulation: Controlling non-point nitrate pollution while maintaining river flows. Environmental and Resource Economics 38(4): 573-593.
• Hanley, N., Colombo, S., Tinch, D., Black, A. & Aftab, A. (2006). Estimating the benefits of water quality improvements under the Water Framework Directive: are benefits transferable? European Review of Agricultural Economics 33(3): 391-413.

Working Paper

• Aftab, A. (2016). The Economics of Spatially Targeted Land Retirement to Control Nonpoint Pollution.
• Aftab, A. (2016). Economic Analysis of Policies to Regulate Agricultural Externalities from Malaysian Palm Oil Production.