jacob gellman
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jacob gellman
@jacobgellman.com
Assistant Professor at Oregon State University. Research: Economics of climate risk and adaptation. PhD from University of California, Santa Barbara. https://jacobgellman.com.
These are huge effect sizes.
October 27, 2025 at 6:14 PM
M. Nolan Grey has a great breakdown of California's SB 79, the bill signed last Friday to upzone neighborhoods and add housing near transit.

mnolangray.substack.com/p/everything...
October 15, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Increased immigration to the United States since 1965 may have increased innovation and wages by 5 percent.

www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
September 29, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Good infographic:
September 4, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Reposted by jacob gellman
I don't like it but HIGH FREQUENCY, IN-PERSON assessments are the only way college students are going to learn anything this semester

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/o...
Opinion | Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis.
www.nytimes.com
August 26, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Impossible for me to see this study, which values trade-offs in urban green space and car space, and not think about the congestion pricing experience in New York. Ex-ante people were protective of car space, but ex-post everyone seems to like congestion pricing...
August 28, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by jacob gellman
Developing a new method to answer whether environmental markets actually improve allocative efficiency. California's RECLAIM program improved allocative efficiency, but the US's NOx Budget Trading Program did not, from Kyle C. Meng and Vincent Thivierge https://www.nber.org/papers/w34111
August 15, 2025 at 5:00 PM
I was not aware that a major driver of Indonesian deforestation is... American RV demand

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/w...
August 19, 2025 at 7:46 PM
I didn’t appreciate that a downtown MAX tunnel in Portland would speed up *the whole system* by alleviating the main choke point.

Cool video about it:
youtu.be/OF2-lnj8vEQ
August 2, 2025 at 7:59 PM
What prompts interest in climate change? Batzer et al. explore Google search data to answer.

• Heatwaves drive interest more than wildfires or hurricanes.
• Climate change interest is seasonal.
• Search interest jumps temporarily after extreme weather events.
July 31, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Top states by EV or plug-in electric hybrid share (as of 2023):

CA: 4.5%
DC: 3.8%
HI: 3.0%
WA: 2.8%
OR: 2.4%
NJ: 2.4%
July 22, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Rent freezes are a major part of Zohran Mamdani's platform for NYC mayor.

A nice review of the literature on the effects of rent control is Kholodilin (2024, J. Hous. Econ.)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
June 13, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Reposted by jacob gellman
🚨New @nber.org WP🚨
We use data on 42,000 households in #India to study how the agricultural sector copes w/ labour loss. As #farmers move to cities for higher wages, their left-behind families *don't* substitute with increased capital -- they downsize their farms. (1/2)
nber.org NBER @nber.org · Jun 1
Migrating to new economic opportunities in cities, rural Indian families don't mechanize, they downsize their farms. Their neighbors produce more as land and crops markets adjust, from @raamadhok.bsky.social, Noack, Mushfiq Mobarak, and Deschenes https://www.nber.org/papers/w33854
June 1, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Oregon’s cap and trade would be modeled after Washington’s.

Unlikely with only 5 weeks in the session, but would mean the whole West Coast under cap and trade.
Remember how cap-and-trade was once so complex and controversial it blew up two Oregon legislative sessions?

It's back -- and bipartisan? -- with just five weeks left in the session. #orleg #orpol

www.opb.org/article/2025...
Oregon lawmakers are now considering a ‘cap-and-trade’ program to fund roads, wildfire
The surprising development dredges up debate on a topic that once inspired multiple Republican walkouts
www.opb.org
May 22, 2025 at 9:05 PM
First Street Foundation projected unhealthy air days over the next 15 years:
April 18, 2025 at 12:59 AM
One consequence of restrictive development in urban cores:

Most of the employment growth in the western US since 1990 has taken place in high wildfire hazard areas.

Via Joiner, Walls, Wibbenmeyer 2025.

media.rff.org/documents/Re...
April 14, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by jacob gellman
This paper was making the rounds, but did you notice it has a key contradiction?

They divide cities into two groups (high and low housing supply constraints), and estimate the supply elasticity—how much quantities change in response to prices. Result: no difference!

1/
April 3, 2025 at 7:16 PM
People have very low willingness to privately and voluntarily reduce their carbon footprint.

Via Dechezleprêtre et al. (2025), "Fighting Climate Change: International Attitudes toward Climate Policies"

www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
March 31, 2025 at 8:37 PM
What’s the longest footnote you have ever read
March 27, 2025 at 7:32 PM
When I got my current job one of my committee members, Olivier Deschênes, said to me: "In the winter Alaska is very dark, so there won't be much to do besides work. And in the summer, the sun is out all day -- which is great for working."
March 27, 2025 at 3:13 AM
The funny thing about the logged x-axis is it shows that utility is concave in wealth
March 25, 2025 at 8:43 PM
This is so odd to me. CoreLogic was a much better name.
March 24, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Political Ideology and US EV adoption, by Davis, Li, Springel.

Over 2012-23, EV adoption was driven by left-leaning areas, suggesting challenges in wider adoption.

Will be interesting to see how Elon Musk might drive apolitical and right-wing consumers to adopt EVs.

www.nber.org/papers/w33591
March 24, 2025 at 7:24 PM