Conference Agenda

Urban residents typically experience warmer climates than their suburban counterparts (up to +11.7◦F). This excess warmth, known as urban heat, exhibits significant variations across seasons and neighborhoods. In contrast to the literature that predominantly focuses on the health impacts of regional temperature changes, I leverage high-resolution NASA satellite images and local emergency medical service (EMS) records in Northern California from 2015-2019 to show that temperature variations at the neighborhood level are also critical to health.

More importantly, urban heat, a micro-level temperature variation, imposes differential health risks compared to macro-level (regional) temperature shifts, possibly due to easier adaptations to more localized temperature changes. Furthermore, analyzing the health impacts of urban heat per se reveals a dual effect, with adverse health effects (up to +9.35% more EMS cases) on hot days but protective effects in cold seasons (-6.53%). This dichotomy stems from urban heat's capacity to either mitigate cold stress or exacerbate heat stress, depending on background temperature.

In terms of heterogeneity, the health impacts of urban heat are smaller when it is sparsely distributed across space or in neighborhoods that experience frequent exposure, which provides evidence of adaptation.

Regarding policies, simulations show that targeting extreme levels of urban heat is more effective. Although the benefits vary by season, planting trees, particularly in less green neighborhoods, can offset half of the damage caused by urban heat.

As global temperatures rise, the unequal access to residential cooling technologies, especially air-conditioning, poses a critical challenge for heat adaptation in developing countries. To mitigate this disparity, affordable alternatives like evaporative coolers have been proposed. However, the extent to which they provide protection against extreme heat is uncertain. This paper investigates the inequality in heat adaptation, examining the effectiveness of alternative cooling technologies in mitigating mortality impacts from extreme heat in India for the period 2014-2019. Our empirical results highlight a critical trade-off in heat adaptation. While we find that the expensive air-conditioning proves to be highly effective in reducing temperature-related mortality, its ownership and use remains low, predominantly limited to high-income cities. In contrast, many Indian households, including low-income ones, purchase and use cheaper evaporative coolers, which we estimate offer reduced protection against heat stress. Our analysis then reveals that heat adaptation technologies have collectively reduced heat-related deaths by 21%, generating an annual gross welfare gain of $32 billion. Notably, the wide prevalence of evaporative coolers contributes to two-thirds of these benefits. Yet, our counterfactual scenario demonstrates that air conditioners, if as widespread as evaporative coolers, could have prevented 47% of the heat-related deaths. We conclude showing that subsidising air-conditioning is a cost-effective way to reduce heat-related mortality in India.

This paper investigates the impact of temperature shocks, measured through the duration of heat and cold waves, on a comprehensive measure of health. The proposed metric encompasses a wide array of health issues potentially linked to temperature exposure and enables us to quantify how much time individuals spend in less-than-optimal health states at various life stages. We adopt a human capital framework and approximate health capital with the number of days lost due to disability.

Our results reveal that exposure to heat waves during childhood, especially before the age of 10, has long-term effects on adult health. It increases the probability of departing from perfect health and has a significant impact on both the severity (number of days lost due to disability) and length (years in poor health) of morbidity at later ages.

The particularly high-temperature sensitivity during early childhood can be explained by physiological factors in child development that may constrain their ability to regulate body temperature effectively. Additionally, children's capacity to employ protective measures against extreme heat or to communicate thermal discomfort might be limited.

Our findings show that the effect of exposure during childhood is persistent over time, and that early childhood exposure significantly shapes the subsequent accumulation of health capital, with potential compensatory behaviours appearing unable to fully mitigate the consequences.

Our findings contribute to the assessment of climate change damages and their distributional implications by investigating long-term health consequences. Additionally, our study provides valuable insights into the literature on early childhood shocks, by considering the underexplored role of temperature shocks.