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Research Spotlight
Economic Policy Challenges Facing California's Next Governor: Electricity Policy Reform
Because Californians are likely to want to continue to lead the energy transition, the relevant policy design question is: How can the state achieve these low-carbon energy goals in a more cost- effective manner?
Climate Change is Increasing the Risk of Extreme Autumn Wildfire Conditions Across California
The climate model analyses presented here suggest that continued climate change will further amplify the number of days with extreme fire weather by the end of this century, though a pathway consistent with the UN Paris commitments would substantially curb that increase.
Sight for Sorghums: Comparisons of Satellite- and Ground-Based Sorghum Yield Estimates in Mali
Leveraging a survey experiment in Mali, this study uses plot-level sorghum yield estimates, based on farmer reporting and crop cutting, to construct and evaluate estimates from three satellite-based sensors.
Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) is an aggregate measure of the monetary value of final ecosystem services, or the direct benefits that people derive from nature. In this study, we focus on the 'Chang-Zhu-Tan' (CZT) urban agglomeration—an emerging megacity of over 15 million people situated on the Yangtze River—as a case study of the dynamics of ecological production amidst rapid urbanization. In this study, we couple a spatial-temporal analysis of regional ecological change based on remote-sensing data with economic valuation methods (e.g. travel cost method) using official statistics and survey data. We find that while the land cover of natural ecosystems decreased slightly between 2000 and 2015, their quality—and therefore economic value—greatly improved. From 2000 to 2015, the GEP of CZT increased by 56.77%. In particular, the value of regulating services grew by 7.43% (calculated using inflation-adjusted prices). GEP can reflect nature's contribution to human well-being. At the same time, its long-term trends can serve as an indicator of the extent and quality of local and regional ecosystems, thereby providing a corrective or complement to more conventional measures of development. Although urbanization increases spatial constraints on the management of natural capital, progress in ecological protection and restoration can still improve the quality of ecosystems and the services they provide. Our study shows how GEP, and the value of natural capital it reflects, can grow amidst the pressures of rapid urbanization.
National Bureau of Economic Research,
November 1, 2020
This paper studies how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected labor demand using over 100 million posted jobs on one of the largest online platforms in China. Our data reveals that, due to the effects of the pandemic both in China and abroad, the number of newly posted jobs within the first 13 weeks after the Wuhan lockdown on January 23, 2020 was about one third lower than that of the same lunar calendar weeks in 2018 and 2019. Using econometric methods, we show that, via the global supply chain, COVID-19 cases abroad and in particular pandemic-control policies by foreign governments reduced new job creations in China by 11.7%. We also find that Chinese firms most exposed to international trade outperformed other firms at the beginning of the pandemic but underperformed during recovery as the Novel Coronavirus spread throughout the world.
