Utility Maximization as a Service

Expanding the frontiers of cost-benefit analysis,
and programming control systems that balance multiple objectives.

About

I am Richard Bruns, a PhD economist with 13 years experience in cost-benefit analysis and optimization of public health, biosecurity, and disaster resilence policy and standards. I have three comparative advantages: Indoor Environmental Quality, Policy Analysis of Catastrophic Risks, and Teaching Cost-Benefit Analysis.

Indoor Environmental Quality

I am the only economist who has ever served on an ASHRAE committee. I am currently on their Environmental Health Committee and the Infectious Aerosols Standards committee. My research and practice uses the techniques of welfare economics to help balance all of the competing demands of HVAC systems: occupant health and productivity, energy use, and capital cost. I am designing scales and control systems to guide system operation to maximize social welfare based on sensor input.

Catastrophic Risk Analysis

My cost-benefit work on policies to mitigate global catastrophic risks has included topics such as intentional adulteration of food supplies, catastrophe bonds, critical infrastructure resilience, pandemic prevention policies, vaccine stockpiles, and gene synthesis screening.

Teaching Cost-Benefit Analysis

I specialize in making myself obsolete by teaching other people how to do what I do. I have taught the fundamentals of cost-benefit analysis to many teams and technical experts. I have custom tools and templates to help people who are not computer programmers produce Monte Carlo estimations with bootstrapped confidence intervals. If you want to upskill your team and develop an in-house capability to do rapid-turnaround cost-benefit analysis of emerging policies, contact me. To get a sense of my teaching philosophy, read this article.

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