Research
Working papers
Propagation of extreme heat in agriculture across sectors and space [Job Market Paper]
(An earlier version circulated as “Sectoral impact and propagation of weather shocks”, IMF Working Paper, 2023/053)
Abstract
Agriculture is widely recognized as one of the sectors most vulnerable to extreme temperatures. Yet, crop losses are estimated to form only a modest share of aggregate macroeconomic damages from climate change, since agriculture accounts for a small share of global GDP. These estimates, however, arise from analyses that largely ignore the critical role of agriculture as an upstream sector in global production networks, including the sectoral and spatial linkages connecting local agricultural output to other sectors and regions. In this paper, I develop a a novel reduced form method to incorporate input linkages between sectors and countries that I use to estimate the aggregate impacts of extreme heat in agriculture. A multi-region multi-sector production network model illustrates how extreme heat in agriculture can propagate to downstream sectors across countries by reducing supply availability and increasing intermediate input prices. Exploiting the geographic distribution and temperature sensitivity of 118 crops across the world, I construct a measure of exposure to extreme heat in agriculture and show that it induces substantial losses to downstream sectors, across national borders, and beyond first degree linkages. Counterfactual exercises reveal that input linkages are responsible for approximately 70% of the total value added losses induced by extreme heat in agriculture. The analysis additionally demonstrates the critical role of countries that are central to global production networks, suggesting that local benefits from adaptation in such regions can have substantial co-benefits downstream and in other locations.
Co-benefits of substance abuse regulation on temperature and intimate partner violence (with Filippo Pavanello)
Abstract
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a critical public health concern often linked to substance abuse. Environmental factors can exacerbate substance addiction and use, potentially leading to increased violence. Building on prior work showing that higher temperatures increase violent behavior, we investigate whether substance abuse regulations affect the relationship between temperature and IPV. Leveraging administrative data combined with random fluctuations in daily temperature the jurisdiction level in the United States, we document that an exogenous abuse-deterrent reformulation of opioids in 2010 significantly attenuates the temperature-IPV relationship in counties with higher initial rates of prescription opioid usage. Our main mechanism suggests an indirect reduction in the complementary use of other substances, particularly alcohol, during hot days. Our findings indicate that policies targeting substance abuse may have co-benefits in mitigating the adverse effects of temperature increases.
Endogenous green preferences (with Ravi Vora)
Abstract
Low public support often impedes more stringent environmental policies. But if policies are enacted, do they change individual preferences? Using surveys covering 38 countries around the world, we study the effect of exposure to environmental policies on policy preferences. Exploiting within-country-year, across birth-cohort variation, we document that cohorts exposed to more stringent policies in the past are more supportive of environmental policies at the time of the survey, with the effect largely driven by exposure during early adulthood. This relationship suggests that a society’s environmental policy attitudes evolve endogenously, with implications for the frameworks we use to evaluate the normative appropriateness, predictability, and political economy of these measures.
Climate-induced migration and environmental values
Abstract
Climate awareness is crucial for gaining public support for climate policies. Previous studies show socio-political factors and personal experience of weather shocks as the main drivers of climate attitudes. This paper introduces and empirically tests for international migration induced by weather variations as a novel determinant of climate concern in host countries. I leverage exogenous weather variation in non-OECD countries to construct a gravity-predicted instrument for asylum demands. Using an instrumental variable approach, I find a strong positive effect of weather-induced asylum applications on individual climate concern in European Union countries between 2000 and 2019. Using Google search data, I rule out that news and media coverage are confounding the effect of weather-induced asylum demands. The documented changes in stated preferences, however, do not translate into changes in voting behavior. Using electoral outcomes, I find no effect of weather-induced asylum applications on Green votes in the European Parliament elections. These findings are consistent with three mechanisms that I document, including a drop-out of traditional Green voters, changes in preferences among individuals below the voting age, as well as no changes in the pro-environmental agenda of political parties.
Publications
Adaptation to climate change (Forthcoming) (with Tamma Carleton, Esther Duflo, Kelsey Jack)
Handbook of the Economics of Climate Change, Volume 1, Elsevier (eds. Lint Barrage and Solomon Hsiang)
Abstract
Mounting costs of anthropogenic climate change reveal that adaptation will be essential to human well-being in coming decades. At the same time, the literature on the economics of adaptation offers relatively little guidance for emerging policy. In this chapter, we review the existing literature, focusing on how it can better inform adaptation policy design and implementation. A simple conceptual model of adaptation decision-making describes two core adaptation channels that we link to two streams of adaptation literature, which have emerged largely in parallel. We outline how insights from these literatures can be used for adaptation policy evaluation, highlight key limitations of public intervention in private adaptation markets, and provide guidance and opportunities for future work.
Adapting to climate change accounting for individual beliefs (2024)
Journal of Development Economics, 169, 103289.
Abstract
As the climate changes, efficient climate policy requires a better understanding of how individuals adapt. Despite extensive research on various climate adaptation frictions, including financial and technological constraints, models of adaptive decision-making assume that agents have perfect information and accurate beliefs about climate. Combining rural household data in Bangladesh with a meteorological measure of dryness, this paper studies the role of individual drought beliefs and their accuracy in irrigation decisions as a key adaptive margin. In a theoretical model, I introduce a behavioral friction to document how heterogeneous beliefs differentially influence responsiveness to the same meteorological signal in dryness. The empirical analysis reveals an asymmetric response to dry shocks in irrigation conditional on the accuracy of prior beliefs. A counterfactual analysis shows lower technology adoption levels and higher monetary losses when beliefs are inaccurate.
Drought exposure and accuracy: Motivated reasoning in climate change beliefs (2023)
Environmental and Resource Economics, 85, 649–672 [PDF]
Abstract
The lack of stringent policies to avert climate change has increased the importance of effective and timely adaptation. Adequate adaptation is particularly important for agricultural communities in developing countries, which may most suffer the consequences of climate change. Evidence is still scarce on how people in the most vulnerable areas form climate change beliefs and whether such beliefs exhibit cognitive biases. Using survey data from rural households in Bangladesh together with a meteorological measure of excess dryness relative to historical averages, I study the effect of long-term average drought exposure and short-term deviations on beliefs about drought frequency and the interpretation of drought events. To explore how individuals interpret past droughts, I use an instrumental variable approach and investigate whether individual beliefs lead to asymmetric distortion of objective information. The results show that individuals recollect and overweight evidence tilted towards their prior beliefs, providing evidence of confirmation bias as a directional motivated reasoning mechanism. The findings highlight the need for models that account for behavioral factors and cognitive biases in the study of climate change beliefs for effective communication and adaptation policies.
Happier Elderly Residents. The positive impact of physical activity on objective and subjective health condition of elderly people in nursing homes. Evidence from a multi-site randomized controlled trial (2022)
(with Claudia Senik, Carine Milcent, Chloé Gerves-Pinquié and Patricia Dargent-Molina)
Applied Research in Quality of Life, 17(2), 1091-1111
Abstract
We explore the effects of adapted physical exercise programs in nursing homes, in which some residents suffer from dementia and/or physical limitations and others do not. We use data from 452 participants followed over 12 months in 32 retirement homes in four European countries. Using a difference-in-difference with individual random effects model, we show that the program had a significant impact on the number of falls and the self-declared health and health-related quality of life of residents (EQ-5D). The wide scope of this study, in terms of sites, countries, and measured outcomes, brings generality to previously existing evidence. A simple computation, in the case of France, suggests that such programs are highly cost-efficient.
(Selected) Works in Progress
The impacts of climate change on human migration (with Tamma Carleton, Levi Crews, Ishan Nath)
Long-term climatic conditions and global spatial distribution of population (with Alexander Marbler)
Yielding resilience: Crop insurance in a warming world (with Patrick Baylis, Talha Naeem)
Status: Field Preparation
Funding: International Growth Centre, CIDER Small Grants
Funding: International Growth Centre, CIDER Small Grants