Conference Agenda

Hotter temperatures due to climate change are expected to increase interpersonal violence. We find temperature affects gun violence in Chicago not through hot days getting hotter but through cold days growing milder, which previous climate change damage predictions may overlook. For every season except summer, a 1C warmer day results in 1.4% more gun violence. Using data from automated crime reporting allows us to confirm criminal behaviour (rather than criminal statistics production) is temperature sensitive. We also find evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic and its lockdowns exacerbate the temperature-violence relationship, while positive shocks such as NFL wins attenuate it.

Green initiatives such as renewable energy consumption (REC), green finance (GF), and environmental taxes (ERT) are important drivers of environment sustainability in an economy. Therefore, exploring the impact of these initiatives, specifically on consumption-based carbon emissions (CBE) can provide useful policy directions. This study examines the stated relationship by employing the Driscoll-Kraay regression approach for the panel of OECD nations over a temporal span from 1995 to 2022. The endogeneity concerns have been addressed by the system generalized method of moments. For ascertaining the impact of explanatory variables across the distribution of dependent variable we have employed methods of moments quantile regression. The results of different econometric approaches reveal that GF, ERT, and REC contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing CBE, while population growth, economic development, and inefficient use of energy lead to environmental degradation. Most importantly, there is a synergistic impact of interaction between GF and ERT on environmental sustainability. The consistency of our results across different models and methodologies underscores their robustness. The potential impact of these findings is significant as they can guide policy decisions and actions to ensure environmental sustainability.

The field of research into directed technological change (DTC) remains in an ‘anything goes’ state. We propose five stylized facts with which an ideal DTC model should be consistent. Then we develop a theoretical model which incorporates each of these facts. In a highly preliminary section we calibrate the model. And in the final section—almost non-existent at this point—we perform policy experiments and sensitivity analysis.

Terrestrial water storage (TWS) is an essential resource for food and energy production, manufacturing and ecosystem health. Even though absolute TWS is unknown, satellite gravimetry-based methods enable global estimations of TWS changes, revealing significant alterations over the past two decades due to natural variability, direct human influence, and climate change. Yet, changes in freshwater are not considered in current estimates of the economic cost of climate change. To address this gap, we combine GRACE TWS anomaly measurements from 2004 to 2018 with data on economic growth from more than 1600 subnational regions worldwide. We then empirically assess the impact of changes in TWS on regional growth, employing a long-difference approach and fixed-effects panel regressions with either instrumental variables (IV) or a control variable for human water consumption. The IV approach isolates the meteorological drivers of TWS changes, utilising the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) as an instrument. We find that negative TWS trends are associated with reductions in economic growth across all three models. Among the regions with the largest TWS-induced growth rate reductions are several in the Caspian Region and India, whereas others benefitted, pointing to pronounced regional heterogeneity even within countries. To further investigate this heterogeneity, we combine a leave-one-out sensitivity analysis with tree-based classification techniques and a feature importance analysis. This reveals i.a. that regions with high tourism per capita experience higher growth reductions for negative TWS trends, while very high mean precipitation mitigates the effect. Our findings contribute to the discourse on sustainable water management and its implications for economic prosperity.