Olivier Deschenes

Research

Olivier Deschenes is Professor of Economics at the University of California Santa Barbara, where he is also affiliated with the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. He is also Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and Program Coordinator of IZA’s research area on the Environment, Health, and Labor Markets. He holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.

Deschenes' broad research agenda focuses on measuring the benefits and costs associated with policies that improve environmental quality. His recent research focused on estimating the impacts of climate change on human health and economic productivity in the U.S. and around the world using historical data. His ongoing work examines the economic and environmental effects of green energy transitions, the relationship between extreme temperature and health, the effect of temperature and ambient pollution fluctuations on worker productivity and health, and the costs and benefits of climate change adaptation.

Selected Publications

Quasi-Experimental Methods in Environmental Economics: Opportunities and Challenges, Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4, pp. 285-332.

A Forward-Looking Ricardian Approach: Do Land Markets Capitalize Climate Change Forecasts? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, May 2018, Volume 89, Number 3, pp. 235-254.

Temperature Effects on Productivity and Factor Reallocation: Evidence from a Half Million Chinese Manufacturing Plants, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, March 2018, Volume 88, Number 3, pp. 1-17.

Defensive Investments and the Demand for Air Quality: Evidence from the NOx Budget Program, American Economic Review, October 2017, Volume 107, Number 10, pp. 2958-89.

Adapting to Climate Change: The Remarkable Decline in the U.S. Temperature-Mortality Relationship over the 20th Century, Journal of Political Economy, February 2016, Volume 124, Number 1, pp. 105-159.

Climate Policy and Labor Markets, in The Design and Implementation of U.S. Climate Policy, University of Chicago Press, 2012 Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather in the U.S., American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2011, 3(4): 152-185.

Extreme Weather Events, Mortality and Migration, Review of Economics and Statistics, November 2009, 91(4): 659-681.

Climate Change and Birth Weight, American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 2009, 99(2): 211-217.

The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Profits and Random Fluctuations in Weather, American Economic Review, March 2007, Volume 97, Number 1, pp. 354-385.