@SipaSusdev

Sustainable Development at CU SIPA prepares scholars to undertake serious research and policy assessments to further the goal of sustainable development.

 New York, NY
sipa.columbia.edu/academics/programs/phd-sustainable-development
Joined June 2015
  • Tweets1.6K
  • Following274
  • Followers932
289Media
I enjoyed doing this interview with probably good! probablygood.org/interviews/…

Mortality Impacts of Climate Change: Danny Bressler

Economist Danny Bressler on studying climate mortality, lessons from consulting, and how he went from Harvard Research Assistant to the White House to academia.

probablygood.org
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SIPA SusDev retweeted
xalfeed@xalfeedSep 15
NPR: Air pollution spiked after the Trump administration stopped embassy monitoring ift.tt/mWgjw2K

Air pollution spiked after the Trump administration stopped embassy monitoring

In 2025, the Trump administration ended a long-running program to collect air pollution data at U.S. embassies. A new study suggests that led to a 24-33% increase in local pollution levels.

npr.org
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The important interaction between trade and climate policy has sharpened the case for a coalition of countries that commit to price industrial emissions at home and use border adjustments to apply a carbon price to imports from nonmembers, argues a new #SciencePolicyArticle. The authors propose a coalition that initially targets four emissions-intensive industries—iron and steel, aluminum, cement, and nitrogen fertilizers—which together account for roughly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. scim.ag/3VikObb
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SIPA SusDev retweeted
Robert Metcalfe@RDMetcalfeJul 16
What if, instead of paying wind farms to switch OFF, we paid households to switch ON? New paper: we ran nationwide natural field experiments in 🇬🇧 and 🇪🇸 with ~120,000 households to find out. 🧵
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As wildfires become an increasingly common part of every day life in North America, Clara Berestycki, a PhD student at SIPA, is studying how people adapt to smoke pollution. This research was also published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Check it out: pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pn…
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Robert Metcalfe@RDMetcalfeJul 23
Very excited to publish this working paper with the excellent Louise Bernard and @a_r_schein @CentreNetZero on the role of critical peak rewards to reduce electricity demand at peak grid stress. Cheaper than the marginal supplier at peak times.
NBER
@nberpubsJul 23
Demand flexibility is key to the future grid but does it work at scale? A 2.6M-customer field experiment finds consumers cut peak demand by 23 percent, with EVs, batteries, and heat pumps, from Louise Bernard, @rdmetcalfe, and Andrew Schein nber.org/papers/w35485
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Research from @Eyal_Frank & @anantsudarshan finds that more than 500K Indians died between 2000 & 2005 because of the loss of vultures, costing the country close to $70 bn each year during that period. Read via @TheEconomist: epic.uchicago.edu/news/how-d…

How do you replace 40 million dead vultures?

By Sudipto Sanyal The Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre, the world’s largest facility for protecting and breeding vultures, is hidden in a dense forest of sal and ash trees outside the town of...

epic.uchicago.edu
The Economist
@TheEconomistApr 19
How do you replace 40 million dead vultures? 1843 investigates India’s vulture conservation crisis econ.st/48Vrr7k Illustration: Mark Smith
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Robert Metcalfe@RDMetcalfeMay 22
Very excited to be co-hosting this conference with @Econ_4_Everyone for the eighth time. Join us in Chicago to present your experimental work & find out about the latest experimental research by others, in many different markets & policy sectors. May 29 deadline to submit.
Becker Friedman Institute for Economics@BeckerFriedmanMay 21
📢 CALL FOR PAPERS: Reminder to submit by May 29, 2026 The 2026 Advances with Field Experiments (AFE) Conference will take place Sept. 17–18 at the University of Chicago. More information: bfi.uchicago.edu/events/even…
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A study by @HarrisPolicy’s @Eyal_Frank and @amirjina of one of the world’s longest-running disaster warning systems—desert locust monitoring—finds surveillance limits damages and generates returns of up to 680 times the investment. Read: bit.ly/4fnfV8R
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Eugenie Dugoua@EugenieDugouaMay 7
Our OECD working paper on innovation across the critical minerals supply chain is out! oecd.org/en/publications/cri… @JoelleNoailly @LSEGeography @CEP_LSE @GRI_LSE @OECD_ENV
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VoxDev@vox_devApr 6
Cloudy with a chance of no clouds: Why weather forecasts are worse in low-income countries Last week on VoxDev w/ @ManuLinsenmeier (Goethe University) & Jeffrey Shrader (@ColumbiaSIPA): voxdev.org/topic/energy-envi…

Cloudy with a chance of no clouds: Why weather forecasts are worse in low-income countries

Weather forecasts in low-income countries are about 20 years behind those in high-income countries, worsening economic losses and increasing vulnerability to climate-related risks.

voxdev.org
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What is the impact of studying STEM vs. Humanities? We consider this in Romanian high schools, where otherwise identical kids can be assigned to STEM-focused or Humanities-focused curricula. Our key finding is that kids are malleable to what they study. This happens on 4 fronts:
NBER
@nberpubs27 Nov 2025
Curriculum shapes more than skills as taking STEM in high school boosts tech careers—but also shifts politics as boys grow more conservative and girls more progressive, from Robert Ainsworth, Rajeev H. Dehejia, @andrei_mntn, Cristian Pop-Eleches, and Miguel Urquiola nber.org/papers/w34502
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¿Cuál es el impacto de estudiar STEM vs. Humanidades? El currículo también moldea valores sociales: 🔹 STEM → hace a los chicos más conservadores y desplaza a algunas chicas hacia posiciones más progresistas. 🔹 Humanidades → fomenta la lectura, la empatía y la amistad con chicas. @m_urquiola nber.org/papers/w34502
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Excited to see my JMP cited in the Economist—it highlights the tradeoffs workers could face with a higher minimum wage and suggests more worker protections like Fair Workweek laws could be important alongside minimum wage increases economist.com/finance-and-ec…
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Service-sector schedules are highly unpredictable and that firms pass risk onto workers through this margin. Predictability declines after min wage hikes, and extreme weather not only increases lost hours but also their uncertainty. Read more here! hannahfarkas.github.io/
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Most workers here earn near the minimum wage. I show that a large wage hike increases schedule unpredictability: schedule inaccuracy rises about 45 min per week, and weekly hours become about 4 hours more variable, indicating firms adjust along this margin to offset higher wages.
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Second, I show that business uncertainty contributes to schedule unpredictability. Using weather shocks that are known to reduce demand, I find schedule inaccuracy rises on very hot, cold, or rainy days, indicating firms shift the risk of slow days onto workers.
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I also take advantage of the fact that I can follow workers across businesses in my data to show that the observed scheduling unpredictability is a business-specific characteristic and does not appear to be largely driven by worker preferences.
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I use a large administrative dataset with workers’ planned schedules, hours worked, and wages. I first show that schedule unpredictability is widespread: last-minute changes are common, weekly hours fluctuate, and the lowest-wage, least-tenured workers face the most instability.
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I’m on the #EconJobMarket! I study labor, extreme weather adaptation, and inequality. My JMP addresses an under-studied aspect of the labor market: schedule unpredictability among hourly workers in the service sector. 🧵👇
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