Job Market Paper
"The Equilibrium Effects of Wildfires: Evidence from the California Housing Market"Draft coming soon
Click for abstract
Increased wildfire frequency coupled with development in the wildland-urban interface has recently resulted in some of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history. This paper looks at the equilibrium effects of wildfire exposure in the context of the housing market. Unlike other commonly studied environmental goods in hedonic work, wildfires directly impact the supply of housing which makes the effect of exposure unclear. Using 20 years of California housing transactions and wildfire data, I implement a stacked event study to estimate the effect of wildfire exposure on housing prices. Prices for properties within the fire perimter decline severely and face the largest drop of 72% 8 months after the fire. However, this effect isn't permanent, and prices recover to pre-fire levels 3 years after the fire. Large declines in prices of undamaged properties within the fire signal that physical damage isn't the only factor driving prices down but also worsening local neighborhood quality which lowers demand. Moreover, residential building permit issuances spike immediately after the fire and signal an improvement of housing and neighborhood quality which drives demand and helps prices to recover. Based on the changes in prices after fire exposure, wildfires impact housing markets primarily through changing demand.
Work in Progress
"Converging Crises: Understanding the Impact of Climate Change and Violence on Migration in Mexico" (with Anthony Ponce and Dana Smith)Click for abstract
Abstract coming soon
"The Value of New York State Parks using Cell Phone Data" (with Gemma Del Rossi, Yongjie Ji, Catherine Kling, Ivan Rudik, and Wendong Zhang)
"Evaluating Public Spaces for Climate Adaptation: Evidence from Urban Cooling Centers"