Congrats, Liam!

We think these results have important implications for climate policy and politics. We'd love your comments.

(also: Simran, Columbia PhD student, is an IPE rising star to keep an eye out for)

Paper here: doi.org/10.31219/osf...

3. How can governments compensate for lost expertise? Outsource! With rich procurement data, we show that private sector demand is a strong predictor of EPA demand for (environmental) consulting services. We illustrate a "de facto privatization" of climate governance.

2. Using survey data from ~1/3 of the fed bureaucracy, we show that greater private sector demand is associated with stronger pro-social attitudes among EPA bureaucrats. This suggests an "ideological screening" effect of private sector competition.

Empirically, we demonstrate three things:

1. With admin data on the U.S. federal bureaucracy, we show that private sector demand is associated with relative declines in the average education/experience of climate bureaucrats. This seems to owe to difficulty recruiting more so than failed retention.

We model a climate expert's choice between public and private employment. Tldr; when firms' wage offers improve, the best experts are more likely to go private as budget-constrained gov agencies can't match. Corporate demand also increases the average pro-sociality of those who remain in government.

Using data on the near universe of U.S. online job postings, we document two stark trends:

1. Private sector demand for skilled climate experts is way up over the last few years.

2. The private sector wage premium for climate experts has rapidly grown.