Publications

Weather Forecasts Become More Important for Reducing Mortality as the Climate Warms
(with Laura Bakkensen, Derek Lemoine, Manuel Linsenmeier, and Jeffrey Shrader)
PNAS, 2026

Abstract

Climate change will increase the frequency and severity of extreme heat, which is a leading cause of weather-related mortality. We combine causal estimates of how temperature forecast accuracy affects mortality in the United States with expert projections of changes in forecast accuracy over the coming century. Our analysis shows that improving short-run temperature forecasts in line with central expert projections would reduce annual heat-related mortality by about 18% by 2100, saving thousands of lives per year. If investments in earth observation networks and weather models improve forecasts in line with optimistic expert projections, annual heat-related mortality would fall by around 25% by 2100. Improving forecasts facilitates adaptation to climate change, saving more lives when climate change is more severe.

Working Papers

Segregation, Spillovers, and the Locus of Racial Change
(with Donald Davis and Matthew Easton)
NBER Working Paper, 2025

Abstract

We use a discrete choice framework to provide the first nesting of Thomas C. Schelling’s canonical models of racial segregation amenable to empirical examination. Using U.S. Census data from 1970–2000, we demonstrate a central role for spatial racial spillovers in shaping racial clustering, patterns of racial shares and housing prices at the boundary of racial clusters, and the locus of racial change. Our results on the locus of racial change conflict strongly with prominent prior results on racial tipping. Our theory provides a foundation for spatially stratified regressions. The strongest spatial effects in the prior work are not tipping, but the distinct biased White suburbanization. Tipping effects in urban areas remote from Minority clusters are small or insignificant. In urban areas proximate to Minority clusters they average less than half those reported in prior pooled results. Policies promoting racial integration must thus attend to the heterogeneous fragility of neighborhoods.

Work in Progress

Household Valuations for the Local Disamenities of Road Traffic

Long-Term Health Impacts of Air Pollution Exposure on the London Underground
(with Adam Dennett, Pia Hardelid, Laura Horsfall, John Hurst, Calum Kennedy, Matthew Loxham, Nicola Shelton, Jemima Stockton, and Jonathan Taylor)

Public Transportation Pricing and Labor Monopsony Power
(with Johannes Brinkmann)

Predoctoral Research

Flood impacts on urban transit and accessibility — A case study of Kinshasa
(with Yiyi He, Paolo Avner, and Jun Rentschler)
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2021

Gender Dimensions of Disaster Risk and Resilience: Existing Evidence
(with Alvina Erman, Sophie Anne de Vries Robbe, Kayenat Kabir, and Mirai Maruo)
World Bank Report, 2021

Floods and their Impacts on Firms: Evidence from Tanzania
(with Jun Rentschler, Ella Jisun Kim, Sophie Anne De Vries Robbe, Alvina Erman, and Stephane Hallegatte)
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, 2021

Household Level Effects of Flooding. Evidence from Thailand
(with Zhuldyz Ashikbayeva, Marei Fürstenberg, Timo Kapelari and Albert Pierres)
TVSEP Working Paper, 2020

A Gini approach to spatial CO2 emissions
(with Bin Zhou, Ramana Gudipudi, Matthias Lüdeke, Jürgen Kropp, and Diego Rybski)
PLOS ONE, 2020