Research Interests
I have worked on diverse topics ranging from technology adoption and agro-environmental policy analysis, voluntary approaches to environmental protection and the land use, market and greenhouse gas implications of biofuels. My work on technology adoption seeks to provide a rationale for the often-observed low rates of adoption of efficiency-enhancing technologies and shows the importance of considering heterogeneous producer characteristics, risks, uncertainty and market failures that distort prices while analyzing the incentives to adopt these technologies. I also examine the design of conservation payments to induce the adoption of improved land management practices to reduce non-point pollution from agriculture and enhance soil carbon sequestration.
My research also examines the effectiveness of environmental information disclosure policies and voluntary pollution control programs in achieving environmental protection. I have studied the motivations for corporations to undertake voluntary environmental initiatives to reduce toxic emissions to the environment. I analyze the design of such voluntary programs, the incentives for firms to participate and the effectiveness of voluntary efforts in improving corporate environmental performance.
More recently, I have been conducting interdisciplinary research analyzing the economic and land use implications of large scale production of biofuels from the next-generation of bioenergy crops, such as perennial grasses and crop residues, and the intended and unintended impacts of biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions and water quality.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Director and Alvin H. Baum Family Fund Chair, Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment
ACES Distinguished Professor, Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Professor, Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Professor, Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
Professor, Center for Global Studies
Professor, Center for Digital Agriculture, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Professor, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
Recent Publications
Arshad, M. U., Archer, D., Wasonga, D., Namoi, N., Boe, A., Mitchell, R., Heaton, E., Khanna, M., & Lee, D. K. (2025). Comparative Economic Analysis Between Bioenergy and Forage Types of Switchgrass for Sustainable Biofuel Feedstock Production: A Data Envelopment Analysis and Cost–Benefit Analysis Approach. GCB Bioenergy, 17(2), Article e70020. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.70020
Bansal, S., & Khanna, M. (2024). Corporate Social Responsibility: Motivations and Effectiveness in Developing Countries. International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, 18(1-2), 123-164. https://doi.org/10.1561/101.00000165
Chen, X., Gao, J., Chen, L., Khanna, M., Gong, B., & Auffhammer, M. (2024). The spatiotemporal pattern of surface ozone and its impact on agricultural productivity in China. PNAS Nexus, 3(1), Article pgad435. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad435
Fan, X., Khanna, M., Lee, Y., Kent, J., Shi, R., Guest, J. S., & Lee, D. K. (2024). Spatially Varying Costs of GHG Abatement with Alternative Cellulosic Feedstocks for Sustainable Aviation Fuels. Environmental Science and Technology, 58(26), 11352-11362. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c01949
Khanna, M., Zilberman, D., Hochman, G., & Basso, B. (2024). An economic perspective of the circular bioeconomy in the food and agricultural sector. Communications Earth and Environment, 5(1), Article 507. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01663-6