Greg Upton

Interim Executive Director & Associate Research Professor Louisiana State University

  • Baton Rouge LA

Dr. Upton's research interests are at the intersection of energy and environmental economics.

Contact

Louisiana State University

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Biography

Dr. Greg Upton is Executive Director & Associate Research Professor at the Louisiana State University Center for Energy Studies. His research interests are at the intersection of energy and environmental economics. He has contributed to over 40 publications and has presented research on these topics to over 200 industry, governmental and academic audiences, including testifying in committees of both chambers of the Louisiana Legislature and a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is regularly interviewed on live talk radio and other news outlets and has been quoted or cited over 250 times in local and national media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, and NPR. He has taught classes in the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program, the Department of Economics, and Environmental Sciences at LSU. He is the President-Elect for the United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE), a member of the University Advisory Board to the Center for Legislative Energy & Environmental Research (CLEER) and an appointee to the National Petroleum Council (NPC). He is a legislatively appointed member of the Clean Hydrogen Task Force created by House Concurrent Resolution 64 of the 2024 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature as well as the Task Force on Local Impacts of Carbon Capture and Sequestration created by Senate Resolution 179 of the 2023 Regular Special Session of the Louisiana Legislature. He is part of the Baton Rouge Business Report Forty Under 40 class of 2024.

Areas of Expertise

Energy Economics
Environmental Economics
Labor Economics

Research Focus

Energy Markets & Environmental Economics

Dr. Upton’s research centers on energy and environmental economics, with emphasis on oil- and gas-market dynamics, energy transition, and their fiscal impacts on Louisiana. He applies econometric modeling, market forecasting, and policy analysis at LSU’s Center for Energy Studies to guide industry strategy and inform state and federal policymakers.

Accomplishments

Tiger Twelve Award

2010

Education

Louisiana State University

Ph.D.

Economics

2014

Louisiana State University

M.A.

Economics

2012

Louisiana State University

B.S.

Economics

2010

Affiliations

  • American Economic Association (AEA)
  • International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE)
  • U.S. Association for Energy Economics (USAEE)
  • Southern Economic Association (SEA)

Spotlight

2 min

LSU Launches Energy Institute

This strategic move aligns with LSU’s Scholarship First Agenda, where energy is one of five core focus areas for research critical to the future of Louisiana and the nation. It also builds on the successes of LSU’s Institute for Energy Innovation, Center for Energy Studies, Louisiana Geological Survey, and the LSU-led FUEL team while assuming a leadership role in how the university engages with its partners—industry, communities, donors, and state and federal agencies—through collaboration and service. “As Louisiana’s flagship research university, LSU is committed to organizing our efforts in ways that maximize impact and reflect institutional priorities,” said Robert Twilley, LSU vice president of research and economic development. “The LSU Energy Institute will provide a platform for faculty across multiple colleges and disciplines to collaborate on solutions to Louisiana’s most pressing energy and environmental challenges.” The LSU Energy Institute will unify and expand several longstanding programs, chiefly the Center for Energy Studies, the Louisiana Geological Survey, and a range of externally funded initiatives, including cutting-edge energy research catalyzed by the LSU Institute for Energy Innovation through a dedicated $25 million investment from Shell. This results-focused realignment reflects a broader effort across LSU to improve coordination between strategic research projects and teams with increased support from research centers, institutes, and core facilities. As LSU’s flagship unit in the energy domain, the Energy Institute will enhance the university’s ability to align interdisciplinary research and policy with Louisiana’s energy economy and environmental stewardship goals. “The reorganization of LSU energy efforts into this institute reflects both a long-standing legacy of service and a renewed vision for the future of energy research in Louisiana. It’s about building on 40 years of trusted work while expanding our capacity to innovate, support decisionmakers, and serve the people of our state, said Greg Upton, interim director of the LSU Energy Institute and executive director of the LSU Center for Energy Studies. The LSU Energy Institute will serve as a central hub for faculty, students, industry, and public agencies working at the intersection of energy technology, resource economics, environmental protection, and policy. The integration of the Louisiana Geological Survey will further reinforce the university’s role in providing critical data and analysis to support state planning and hazard assessment. The institute will also continue to seed competitive, high-quality research focused on energy systems resilience, carbon management, and economic opportunity. These investments reflect LSU’s broader vision to translate research into impact and fuel new jobs and technologies to power Louisiana’s future. Original article posted here. 

Greg Upton

Media Appearances

President Trump’s elimination of wind and solar power tax credits to potentially affect electricity prices in Louisiana and nationwide

Louisiana Radio Network  radio

2025-07-09

President Trump’s budget bill phases out wind and solar power tax credits created during the Biden Administration. These tax credits help energy companies pay for projects that produce solar and wind energy. Director of LSU’s Center for Energy Studies, Doctor Greg Upton, says without this federal subsidy, ratepayers will pick up more of the cost, but the impact is several years away.

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Oil and gas experts on how geopolitical conflicts can impact prices at the pump

WAFB 9  tv

2025-06-26

Last Friday when I looked at the data, what it was, what the markets were saying was while the price was a little bit higher, markets were also in what we call backwardation, and what that means is that markets were anticipating the price was actually going to go down back to about that $65-67 a barrel by the end of the year," Dr. Greg Upton, Executive Director of the LSU Center for Energy Studies, said.

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How is Iran-Israel conflict affecting oil prices? LSU Center for Energy Studies Exec. Director explains

WBRZ  tv

2025-06-25

WBRZ spoke with Greg Upton, the executive director of LSU's Center for Energy Studies. He explained that oil prices have actually come down, and gas prices generally follow the pattern of crude oil prices.

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Articles

Boom town business dynamics

Journal of Human Resources

2024

The U.S. shale oil and gas boom provides a unique opportunity to study economic growth in a “boom town” environment, derive insights about labor market expansions more generally, and identify the causal effects of economic growth on specific margins of business adjustment. Creation of new establishments—separate from expansion of existing establishments—accounts for a disproportionate share of the multi-industry employment growth sparked by the shale boom, an intuitive but not inevitable empirical result that is consistent with models of firm dynamics. New firms, in particular, contribute nearly half of the cumulative employment growth resulting from the shale boom.

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The economics of natural gas flaring and methane emissions in US shale: An agenda for research and policy

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy

2023

Natural gas flaring and methane emissions (F&M) are linked environmental issues for US shale oil and gas operations. Flaring refers to burning natural gas when regulatory, infrastructure, and market constraints make it infeasible to capture it when drilling for oil. In this paper, we lay out an agenda for researchers and policy makers. We describe why F&M are linked, both physically and in terms of policy. Following an interdisciplinary literature review on measurement of F&M, we marshal detailed industry data to identify constraints in the natural gas system that are correlated with upstream F&M. We then discuss the economic and physical causes of F&M. Moving on to the external costs imposed by F&M, we calculate that the climate costs of estimated methane emissions are an order of magnitude larger than the climate costs of reported flaring after accounting for hydrocarbon content and flare efficiency.

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Oil & gas induced economic fluctuations and self-employment

Labour Economics

2023

This paper exploits oil and gas activity generated by recent technological advancements to understand the effect of localized boom and busts on self-employment. We find a positive contemporaneous impact on self-employment, mainly driven by self-employment in non-mining industries. We also find that self-employment is pro-cyclical, meaning that self-employment increases during oil and gas booms and contracts during the bust. Finally, results suggest that self-employment explains an economically meaningful share of the employment adjustment; specifically we estimate that about 11% of the employment adjustment can be explained by self-employed workers, a group which makes up about 9% of total employment.

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Event Appearances

Integration of Behind-the-Meter Solar into Distribution Feeders: The Importance of Time Resolution on Model Results

2019 | IEEE Green Technologies Conference  

Economic and Policy Issues in Sustaining an Adequate Oil Spill Contingency Fund in the Aftermath of a Catastrophic Incident

2014 | Proceedings of the Thirty-seventh AMOP Technical Seminar on Environmental Contamination and Response  

Research Grants

Economic Implications Related to the Buildout of the Offshore Wind Energy Industry Across the United States

Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES)

2024

Identifying Exception Events Affecting PM Concentrations in the Baton Rouge Area

ExxonMobil

2024

Potential for Clean Hydrogen Demand in Louisiana

Greater New Orleans Development Foundation (GNODF)

2024

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