PNNL

Dr. Xin Zhao is an economist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who has been conducting applied economic research at the Joint Global Change Research Institute since joining in 2018, focusing on the intersections of agriculture, energy, and the environment. His recent work has examined biophysical features and the impacts of policy on agriculture, forestry, land use, employment, and macroeconomics, exploring their consequences and feedback within integrated human-Earth systems. As a core Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) developer, Dr. Zhao has advanced the economic modeling theory of land allocation and trade integration. He also led GCAM’s recent participation in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), contributing to the evaluation of transition pathways toward healthy and sustainable food futures (EAT-Lancet 2.0). Dr. Zhao holds a PhD in agricultural economics from Purdue University (2018). He previously served as a U.S. delegate to the Alternative Fuels Task Force of the International Civil Aviation Organization, where his research provided policy guidance on promoting sustainable aviation fuels to reduce emissions from air transportation.

• Agriculture and land use
• Bioenergy
• Climate change impacts
• Food systems
• Integrated assessment
• International trade
• Macroeconomics
• Techno-economic analysis

PhD in agricultural economics, Purdue University, 2018

MS in agricultural economics, Purdue University, 2014

2025

Sheng, D., Zhao, X., Edmonds, J.A. et al. Omitting labor responses underestimates the effects of future heat stress on agriculture. Commun Earth Environ 6, 400 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02318-w

Zhao, X., Chepeliev, M., Escobar, N. et al. Traceable and Scalable Food Balance Sheets from Agricultural Commodity Supply and Utilization Accounts (2010–2022). Sci Data 12, 834 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-05137-y

Yarlagadda, B., Zhao, X., Iyer, G. et al. Emissions leakage and economic losses may undermine deforestation-linked oil crop import restrictions. Nat Commun 16, 1520 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56693-1

Sheng, D., Edmonds, J.A., Patel, P. et al. Labour market evolution is a key determinant of global agroeconomic and environmental futures. Nat Food 6, 139–150 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01088-6

2024

Théo Rouhette*, Neus Escobar, Xin Zhao, María José Sanz and Dirk-Jan van de Ven, Limits to forests-based mitigation in integrated assessment modelling: global potentials and impacts under constraining factors, Environmental Research Letters, Volume 19, 114017DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ad7748.

Luo, M., Daigneault, A., Zhao, X., Hao, D., & Chen, M. (2024). Impacts of forest management-induced productivity changes on future land use and land cover change. Earth's Future, 12, e2024EF004878. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004878

Zhao et al., (2024). gcamfaostat: An R package to prepare, process, and synthesize FAOSTAT data for global agroeconomic and multisector dynamic modeling. Journal of Open Source Software, 9(96), 6388, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06388

Zhao, X., Mignone, B.K., Wise, M.A. et al. Trade-offs in land-based carbon removal measures under 1.5 °C and 2 °C futures. Nat Commun 15, 2297 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46575-3

2023

Yarlagadda, B., Wild, T., Zhao, X., Clarke, L., Cui, R., Khan, Z., et al. (2023). Trade and climate mitigation interactions create agro-economic opportunities with social and environmental trade-offs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Earth's Future, 11, e2022EF003063. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003063

2022

Xin Zhao, Marshall A. Wise, Stephanie T. Waldhoff, G. Page Kyle, Jonathan E. Huster, Christopher W. Ramig, Lauren E. Rafelski, Pralit L. Patel, Katherine V. Calvin, The impact of agricultural trade approaches on global economic modeling, Global Environmental Change, Volume 73, 2022, 102413, ISSN 0959-3780, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102413.

Calvin, K. V., Snyder, A., Zhao, X., and Wise, M.: Modeling land use and land cover change: using a hindcast to estimate economic parameters in gcamland v2.0, Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 429–447, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-429-2022. 

2021

Xin Zhao, Katherine V Calvin, Marshall A Wise, Pralit L Patel, Abigail C Snyder, Stephanie T Waldhoff, Mohamad I Hejazi and James A Edmonds, Global agricultural responses to interannual climate and biophysical variability, Environmental Research Letters, Volume 16, Number 10Citation Xin Zhao et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 104037DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac2965.

Wang Z. Juju, Staples Mark D., Tyner Wallace E., Zhao Xin, Malina Robert, Olcay Hakan, Allroggen Florian, Barrett Steven R. H., Quantitative Policy Analysis for Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production Technologies, Frontiers in Energy Research, Volume 9, 2021, DOI=10.3389/fenrg.2021.751722, ISSN=2296-598X.

Xin Zhao, Katherine V. Calvin, Marshall A. Wise, Gokul Iyer, The role of global agricultural market integration in multiregional economic modeling: Using hindcast experiments to validate an Armington model, Economic Analysis and Policy, Volume 72, 2021, Pages 1-17, ISSN 0313-5926, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2021.07.007.

Xin Zhao, Farzad Taheripour, Robert Malina, Mark D. Staples, Wallace E. Tyner, Estimating induced land use change emissions for sustainable aviation biofuel pathways, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 779, 2021, 146238, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146238. 

2020

Taheripour, F., Zhao, X., Horridge, M., Farrokhi, F., & Tyner, W. (2020). Land Use in Computable General Equilibrium Models. Journal of Global Economic Analysis, 5(2), 63–109. https://doi.org/10.21642/JGEA.050202AF. 

XIN ZHAO, KATHERINE V. CALVIN, and MARSHALL A. WISE, THE CRITICAL ROLE OF CONVERSION COST AND COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE IN MODELING AGRICULTURAL LAND USE CHANGE, Climate Change Economics 2020.

Xin Zhao, Dominique Y. van der Mensbrugghe, Roman M. Keeney, Wallace E. Tyner, Improving the way land use change is handled in economic models, Economic Modelling, Volume 84, 2020, Pages 13-26, ISSN 0264-9993, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2019.03.003.