Rate My Professor James Goodenberger

James Goodenberger is Associate Professor of Economics and Co-chair of the Economics and Business department at Cornell College, where he joined as Assistant Professor in 2023 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2025. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Economics at Oglethorpe University’s Hammack School of Business from 2018 to 2023 and Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at Washington and Lee University from 2016 to 2018. Goodenberger earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics from The Ohio State University in 2016, with research fields in environment and resource economics under advisors H. Allen Klaiber and Sathya Gopalakrishnan. He holds a B.A. in Economics, minor in Mathematics, from Hastings College.

His research focuses on environment and resource economics, with key publications including “The interactive effects of temperature and air quality on productivity” co-authored with Robert Munk and Garrett Senney in Applied Economics (2025), “Evading Invasives: How Eurasian Watermilfoil Effects the Development of Lakefront Properties” with H.A. Klaiber (revise and resubmit, Ecological Economics), and the working paper “The Interactive Effects of Temperature and Air Pollution on Labor Productivity” (2021). Earlier working papers encompass his job market paper “Spatial Dynamic Control in Heterogeneous Environments” and “The Optimal Control of Forest Fires in Complex Landscapes.” Goodenberger has presented at the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists meetings, World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association meetings, and other venues including the Environmental Policy Initiative Webinar. Honors include the Bernie Erven Graduate Teaching Award, AEDE’s 2nd Best 2nd Year Ph.D. Research Manuscript award, OARDC Fellowship, and Bronco Award from Hastings College. He teaches principles of microeconomics, intermediate microeconomic theory, environmental economics, labor economics, and microeconomic seminar courses.