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

by Matthew E. Kahn

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Climate Change

304 pages, Hardcover

First published March 30, 2021

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good summary of the literature, even if a bit too optimistic

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

The future seems unpredictable, just as the subtitle of this volume states. And here is another snake oil salesman who will predict it for you in exchange for good wages for him, his nieces and nephews, from the taxes collected by the Government. Work. Obey. Kahn wants a bigger house and probably has some children at home who will need to pay the high tuition required by the Universities of the 21st century.

[University of Chicago Magazine]

Matthew E. Kahn, AM'93, PhD'93
Author

From the author: "This book uses the tools of University of Chicago price theory to explore the microeconomics of climate change adaptation."

[Alea Wilbur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very clearly written by an economist but I enjoyed it.