Current Research

The increased interest in governance with government rather than governance by government has garnered much attention in the study of alternative, decentralized governance approaches in environmental policy and management. Yet questions remain about their emergence, diffusion, and impact. Why do some firms and organizations participate and not others? What explains different levels of effort and performance? Do they work? If so, by how much? Who/which group gains or loses?

To answer these questions, my research bridges the fields of economics, public policy, and management. I have been, and am, involved in projects that investigate the drivers and impact of voluntary approaches and market-based policies across sectors and in developed and developing countries. My work has examined the interaction between public and private provisions of public goods, the role of markets, institutions, and political economy considerations in policymaking and policy design. I have also considered the implications of alternative governance approaches on social equity and environmental justice and the role of cities and local governments.

I collect novel data and use a variety of research methods. My methodological interests and expertise include quasi-experimental approaches, survey-based techniques, multilevel/hierarchical modeling, discrete-continuous choice modeling, dynamic panel modeling, time series analysis, big data techniques for causal inference, and systematic interviews with key stakeholders to explore causal mechanisms. 

Hsueh, Lily. Corporations at Climate Crossroads: Multilevel Governance, Public Policy, and Global Climate Action. Under Production at MIT Press. (Awarded 2020-21 AAUW American Fellowship. Selected by MIT Press for a fully-funded, open access edition alongside print and ebook editions.)

Hsueh, Lily. 2022. “Do Businesses that Disclose Climate Change Information Emit Less Carbon? Evidence from S&P 500 Firms.” Climate Change Economics  13(2): 1-43. 

Hsueh, Lily. 2019. “Voluntary Climate Action and Credible Regulatory Threat: Evidence from the Carbon Disclosure Project.” Journal of Regulatory Economics 56 (2-3): 188-225. 

Hsueh, Lily. 2019. “Corporations at a Crossroads: How Multilevel Governance Interactions Shape Participation and Effort in Private Governance Regimes.” Governance 32 (4): 715-760. 

Hsueh, Lily. 2019. “Opening up the Firm: What Explains Participation and Effort in Voluntary Carbon Disclosure by Businesses? An Analysis of Internal Firm Factors and Dynamics.” Business Strategy and the Environment 28 (7): 1302-1322. 

Hsueh, Lily. 2017. “Transnational Climate Governance and the Global 500: Examining Private Actor Participation by Firm-Level Factors and Dynamics.” International Interactions 43 (1): 48-75. 

Hsueh, Lily, and Aseem Prakash. 2012. “Incentivizing Self-Regulation: Federal vs. State-Level Voluntary Programs in US Climate Change Policies.” Regulation & Governance 6 (4): 455-473.  

Hsueh, Lily and Stephen Kasperski. 2018. “What Explain the Impact of U.S. West Coast Trawl Rationalization on Multiregional Fishery Participation and Effort.” Marine Policy  95: 123-132. 

Hsueh, Lily. 2017. “Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the ‘Rights to Fish’: The Effects of Catch Shares on Fishermen’s Days at Sea.” Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 4 (2): 407-445.  

Hsueh, Lily. 2020. “Expanding the Multiple Streams Framework to Explain the Formation of Diverse Voluntary Programs: Evidence from U.S. Toxic Chemical Use Policy.” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 10: 111-123. 

Hsueh, Lily. 2015. “Regulatory Effectiveness and the Long-Run Policy Horizon: The Case of U.S. Toxic Chemical Use.” Environmental Science & Policy 52 (October): 6–22. 

Hsueh, Lily. 2013. “Beyond Regulations: Industry Voluntary Ban in Arsenic Use.” Journal of Environmental Management 131 (December): 435–46. 

Chen, Yifan, Stuart Bretschneider, Justin Stritch, Nicole Darnall, and Lily Hsueh. 2021. “E-procurement System Adoption in Local Governments: The Role of Procurement Complexity and Organizational Structure." Public Management Review 24(6): 903-925. 

Stritch, Justin, Stuart Bretschneider, Nicole Darnall, Lily Hsueh, and Yifan Chen. 2020. "Sustainability Policy Objectives, Centralized Decision Making and Efficiency in Public Procurement Processes." Sustainability  12 (17), 6934: 1-17.

Hsueh, Lily, Stuart Bretschneider, Justin Stritch, and Nicole Darnall. 2020. “Implementation of Sustainable Public Procurement in Local Governments: A Measurement Approach.” International Journal of Public Sector Management 33 (6/7): 697-712.

Stritch, Justin, Nicole Darnall, Lily Hsueh, Stuart Bretschneider. 2018. “Promoting Public Sector Sustainability through Procurement,” IEEE Engineering Management Review 46 (1): 128-131. 

No, Won and Lily Hsueh. 2020. “How Participatory Process with Inclusive Structural Design Allocates Resources Toward Poor Neighborhoods: The Case of Participatory Budgeting in Seoul, South Korea.” International Review of Administrative Sciences (First Online; doi: 10.1177/0020852320943668). 

Yu, Suyang and Lily Hsueh. "Do Wildfires Exacerbate COVID-19 Infection and Mortality in Vulnerable Communities? Evidence from California." Journal of Environmental Management 328 (February): 1-8.

Hsueh, Lily. 2020. “Calling all Volunteers: Industry Self-regulation on the Environment.” In Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy, edited by David M. Konisky, 243–256. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Hsueh, Lily, and Aseem Prakash. 2012. “Private Voluntary Programs on Climate Change: U.S. Federal Government as the Sponsoring Actor.” In Business and Climate Policy: The Potentials and Pitfalls of Private Voluntary Programs, edited by Karsten Ronit, 77–110. United Nations University Press.  

Industry Self-Regulation and Global Climate Change

Hsueh, Lily and Connor Nolan. "Sorting through the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Green CLubs Framework for Governing the Supply of Voluntary Carbon Offsets."

Hsueh, Lily. “Is Corporate Environmentalism Good, Bad or Neutral for Jobs?        Evidence from S&P 500 Firms’ Renewable Energy Production and Use.” 

Energy Policy and Tecnological Innovation 

Cho, Eugene and Lily Hsueh. "Does Renewable Energy Policy Induce Technological Innovation and Adoption? Evidence from OECD Countries"

Natural Disasters, Extreme Events, Environmental Justice, and Decentralized Approaches 

Hernandez-Cortez, Danae, Lily Hsueh, and Diana Bowman. “Developing a Methodology for Evaluating the Equity Impacts of Transport Infrastructure Policies.” (This project is part of a two-million-dollar grant proposal under review at NSF, along with colleagues in engineering, sustainability, and law at ASU, UCLA, and the Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.) 

Hsueh, Lily. "Multilevel and Alternative Governance Approaches to Distributional (In)Equity in Energy Infrastracture and Climate Adaptation." (Funded by President's Strategic Initiative Fund, Office of the President, Arizona State University)

Hsueh, Lily, Marion Neukam, Brian Gerber, and Sophie Bollinger. “Towards a Sustainable Innovative Strategy in the Face of Natural Hazard Disruption: Understanding Interactions Between Managers and Employees.”