Jonathan B. Taylor
Senior Policy Scholar

Jonathan B. Taylor is a senior policy scholar at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. He is a specialist in natural resource economics and in regulation at Lexecon, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also directs Lexecon's practice in support of Native American economic development, where he provides consulting expertise to tribes and bands in the United States and Canada in the areas of strategic management and economic development. He has authored or supported testimony in litigation and public hearings for a number of Native American groups needing economic analysis to support treaty rights or tribal policies.

As a consultant to Indian tribes, Mr. Taylor has worked in a wide variety of institutional and cultural settings on projects ranging from constitutional reform to enterprise feasibility. These projects have included assessing changes in quality of life arising from major enterprise success (including casino gaming), planning for self-governance compacting, assisting in constitutional evaluation and reform, providing public policy analysis and negotiation support in the context of resource development, and educating tribal executives.

Mr. Taylor has specific industry experience in the railroad, timber, and natural gas sectors. Recent casework has included an analysis of gas royalty instruments, gathering, treatment, processing, and transportation markets, and federal and state taxation and regulation policy relating to natural gas development. Mr. Taylor managed the analysis of trade in softwood lumber in the context of an arbitration proceeding under the Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber Agreement.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Taylor was a researcher at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C., where he examined state policy innovations to the national Superfund law and their effects on the incentives of third parties to enforce compliance. Mr. Taylor is a research fellow at The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the Kennedy School of Government. He has a Master's in Public Policy, from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (1992) A.B., Politics, Princeton University (1986).