Adapting to Climate Change: Markets and the Management of an Uncertain Future

by Matthew E. Kahn

Overview

A revelatory study of how climate change will affect individual economic decisions, and the broad impact of those choices
 
Selected by Publishers Weekly as one of its Top Ten Books in Business and Economics for Spring 2021
 
It is all but certain that the next century will be hotter than any we’ve experienced before. Even if we get serious about fighting climate change, it’s clear that we will need to adapt to the changes already underway in our environment. This book considers how individual economic choices in response to climate change will transform the larger economy.
 
Using the tools of microeconomics, Matthew E. Kahn explores how decisions about where we live, how our food is grown, and where new business ventures choose to locate are affected by climate change. Kahn suggests new ways that big data can be deployed to ease energy or water shortages to aid agricultural operations and proposes informed policy changes related to public infrastructure, disaster relief, and real estate to nudge land use, transportation options, and business development in the right direction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300246711
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	937,905
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.06(d)

About the Author

Matthew E. Kahn is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University and he is a Provost Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Adaptation? 1

1 A Microeconomics Perspective on Climate Science Prediction 18

2 Daily Quality of Life 35

3 Protecting the Poor 60

4 Upgrading Public Infrastructure 77

5 Will Climate Change Threaten Economic Productivity? 95

6 Protecting Urban Red Estate 118

7 The Market for Big Data Facilitates Adaptation 146

8 Reimagining the Real Estate Sector 171

9 Reimagining Laws and Regulations to Facilitate Adaptation 185

10 Innovation in Agricultural Production (Cowritten with Brian Casey and Nolan Jones) 201

11 Globalization and International Trade Facilitate Adaptation 223

Conclusion: Human Capital Fuels Adaptation 234

Notes 245

Bibliography 257

Acknowledgments 285

Index 287

Editorial Reviews

This is a timely, valuable and accessible contribution to the climate change debate by a US-based economics professor. After the frustrations and hyperbole at COP26 it offers a welcome reminder that mitigation is only one of the ways in which we can cope with the challenges ahead: adaptation may prove just important, perhaps more so.”—Kevin Gardiner, Reading Room for the Society of Professional Economists

“Are you looking for an approach that recognizes the costs of climate change, and approaches the entire question with an economic and political sanity? Matthew E. Kahn’s new book Adapting to Climate Change is then essential reading.”—Tyler Cowen, George Mason University

“The COVID-19 crisis dramatically changed the way the world lives and works; but climate change poses an even greater challenge. Matt Kahn argues the best way to meet that challenge lies less in top-down government programs and more in using policy to nudge corporations and millions of people to make better individual decisions. A must read for everyone concerned with humanity’s future.”—Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class

“A balanced, eye-opening analysis of how individual choices and markets can lead to better outcomes in our struggle to arrest climate change. This book will give you a measure of optimism about our ability to survive without paying a high price in standards of living.”—Mauro Guillen, author of the bestselling 2030: How Today’s Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything

From the Publisher