I am an environmental and labor economist at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). I am affiliated with CEEP, the Climate School, and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). From 2023 to 2024, I was a Senior Advisor in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). I study how forecasts and other types of information affect actions in settings including adaptation to climate change, risk-taking in research, and time use. These days, I am especially fascinated by how people perceive and use weather forecasts—a decades-long information intervention going on every hour of the day, all around the world.

News and updates

Manuel Linsenmeier won the top prize at the 2023 Columbia Climate School Postdoc Research Symposium for a poster on our new work on global weather forecast inequality.

Two upcoming presentations in California at the end of the month: First the Occasional Workshop in Environmental and Resource Economics, where I will be discussing Renato Molina and Ivan Rudik’s new work on the value of hurricane forecasts. Second presenting new work joint with Edem Klobodu and Francis Annan at a the Stanford Preparing for a Changing Climate Conference.

Danny Bressler will be presenting new work, joint with me and Andrew Wilson, at the EEA meeting in New York. We show that humid heat is especially devastating for the health of children and young adults.

New publication! Adjusting to Rain Before It Falls shows that factor adjustment costs combined with projected increases in rainfall volatility will routinely lead to climate change damage. This effect is missing from all prior equilibrium-based analyses of climate impacts. Lots more in the paper: construction sector is especially vulnerable to these effects, current seasonal rainfall forecasts help construction firms but at the expense of workers, construction firms lose 10% of profit from unanticipatable rainfall shocks.

New policy forum paper published in Science. We discuss the research implications of the SEC’s proposed climate risk disclosure rule, which will hopefully be finalized any day now.

I will be presenting new work on the value of weather forecast improvements at the NBER on March 24th. The talk will be streamed on Youtube here.

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