School of Information Studies (iSchool) Associate Professor Jason Dedrick has been awarded a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to analyze jobs associated with the wind energy industry in the United States and around the globe.

Dedrick will address this issue through a focused study of the wind energy industry. Using a methodology developed in a study of the iPod value chain, Dedrick and his associates, Greg Linden of UC Berkeley and Kenneth L. Kraemer of the University of California Irvine, will estimate the global distribution of jobs and wages associated with wind energy development in the United States. They also will forecast future wind energy jobs and wages in the United States and other countries under different scenarios.

“My role will be to collect data from wind turbine manufacturers, their suppliers and wind farm developers and operators to estimate the current number of jobs in the U.S. and abroad,” explains Dedrick. “Then I’ll forecast future job creation under different scenarios, depending on the scale of investment and the nationality of the turbine manufacturers.”

The objective is to provide independent, fact-based information for policymakers and other decision makers, and to develop new understanding of the relationship of innovation to employment in global value chains.

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