UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Sheila Olmstead, professor at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, will give the talk, “Do Dams and Groundwater Mitigate Drought’s Economic Impact?,” at noon on Wednesday, Nov. 6 , in 157 Hosler Building on the University Park campus. 

Olmstead’s talk will examine the global effects of droughts on economic activity, by using nighttime light data collected by remote sensing as a proxy for economic activity.

Olmstead uses two different, comprehensive indices of drought severity, one remote-sensed and one constructed from ground-sensed meteorological data, contributing to a literature on climate extremes that has previously focused on precipitation, rather than drought. Her results suggest that moderate or worse droughts in the current year reduce luminosity by about 1%, with smaller but statistically significant impacts under even mild and incipient drought conditions. She estimates some lagged effects as well — moderate or worse droughts may reduce lights up to four years after they occur. She also investigates the mediating effects of access to groundwater resources of varying quality and access to reservoirs impounded by dams. She finds evidence consistent with both groundwater and dams mitigating droughts’ economic impacts.

Olmstead is also an Atkinson Scholar at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, a University Fellow at Resources for the Future and a Senior Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center. Olmstead is a member of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board and president-elect of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. She formerly served as Senior Economist for Energy and Environment at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Olmstead studies the economic dimensions of environmental policies, especially those related to water quantity and quality. She earned her bachelor of arts in political and social thought from the University of Virginia, her master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Texas at Austin, and her doctorate in public policy from Harvard University.

This talk is part of the Initiative for Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEPI) fall seminar series. View more information on EEEPI.