The Unassuming Economist

From Climate Economics:

“Here are the slides from my recent 25 minute talk. Here is the video where I speak first and then Siqi Zheng speaks about decarbonizing the real estate sector. Here is the entire lecture series.

Six Quick Points

#1 In the developing world, billions of people are moving from rural areas to the cities. Cities offer greater economic opportunity, more excitement and one’s productivity is higher and more robust for urbanites. Farming is more affected by wild weather than is urban life.

#2 People who expect to live their lives in cities invest more in their human capital. Those with more skills are better at solving new problems and are better able to adapt to whatever challenges climate change is posing.

#3 Urbanization raises our income and richer people, cities and nations are better able to adapt to risks. Economic development accelerates adaptation.

#4 Nations with a larger menu of cities to move to will be better able to adapt to climate change. If a nation has one dominant city, then rural to urban migration will cause the mega city to get too big and this will lower quality of life in the slums in that city.

#5 Government investments in place based infrastructure and social insurance often have the unintended consequence of crowding out private self protection investment. That is BAD! Social scientists need to figure out how to design resilience policies such that they are complements not substitutes for private adaptation efforts.

#6 The Lucas Critique; We are not passive victims in the face of climate change. We have an ever growing menu of adaptation strategies that protect us against the serious challenges we now face.”