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Jacob Gellman

@jacobgellman.com
297 followers 238 following 82 posts

Assistant Professor at Oregon State University. Research: Economics of climate risk and adaptation. jacobgellman.com.

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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 21h
What is the cost of hurricane evacuation? We structurally estimate a travel cost model using data on hurricanes, evac. orders, and billions of obs of cell phone movement. Welfare costs average 55% as a share of mortality costs. (w/ Hennighausen, Watson, Berry.) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 27/09/2026
County-level US election results going back to 1990, previously only available either as paid data or extending only to 2010 in free alternatives, via @pmheideman.bsky.social github.com/pmheideman/u...
github.com
GitHub - pmheideman/us-county-election-results: County-level U.S. election results: House, Senate and President by county, 1990-2024. Candidate-level, every source documented. CSV/Parquet, CC BY 4.0.
County-level U.S. election results: House, Senate and President by county, 1990-2024. Candidate-level, every source documented. CSV/Parquet, CC BY 4.0. - pmheideman/us-county-election-results
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 24/09/2026
I'm guessing Portland's declining rents have something to do with Nike and Intel layoffs, but it's not out of line with some other key metros in the West e.g. SEA, SF, LA, DEN, PHX. Meanwhile the Northeast and Midwest are surging. www.apartmentlist.com/research/ren...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 23/09/2026
Who gets federal disaster assistance? Kris Smith and Bill Daigle at Headwaters Econ rounded up PDFs from FEMA Preliminary Damage Assessment and turned them into usable county-level data. headwaterseconomics.org/natural-haza...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 04/08/2026
There is no way that betting on wildfires should be legal. www.oregonlive.com/wildfires/20...
oregonlive.com
As Oregon burns and gamblers bet, lawmakers push back against wildfire betting markets drawing millions
Wyden and Merkley are urging federal regulators to crack down on prediction markets that allow users to wager on how long wildfires will burn and how much damage they will cause
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 19/05/2026
Hmm, wasn't there a famous fire there in the 90s? No, that must have been the *Oakland* Hills fire just to the south. Completely different.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 18/05/2026
For some reason I was not aware of this FEMA dataset, USA Structures. It's shown in the new Qin and Voorheis (2026) NBER working paper about flood insurance. Parcel outlines, address, dwelling type, and other information for the whole country. gis-fema.hub.arcgis.com/pages/usa-st...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 11/01/2026
"Even without hurricanes, US disaster costs surpassed $100 billion last year." "More than half of 2025 disaster costs, $61 billion, were tied to the wildfires that burned in Los Angeles last January." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/c...
nytimes.com
Even Without Hurricanes, U.S. Disaster Costs Surpassed $100 Billion Last Year
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 04/01/2026
"Cheap Solar Is Transforming Lives and Economies Across Africa" www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/c...
nytimes.com
Cheap Solar Is Transforming Lives and Economies Across Africa
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 18/12/2025
Newer planes are also nicer to ride in.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 10/12/2025
See also Watson, Guettabi, Reimer (2020), "Universal Cash and Crime" in ReStat.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 04/12/2025
Prospective PhD student interested in environmental, agricultural, or development economics? Consider applying to Oregon State University. Video explainer on our PhD program: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 27/10/2025
These are huge effect sizes.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 16/10/2025
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...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 29/09/2025
Increased immigration to the United States since 1965 may have increased innovation and wages by 5 percent. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 04/09/2025
Good infographic:
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Nick Hagerty @hagertynw.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
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...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 28/08/2025
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...
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NBER @nber.org · 15/08/2025
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 www.nber.org/papers/w34111
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 19/08/2025
I was not aware that a major driver of Indonesian deforestation is... American RV demand www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/w...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 02/08/2025
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
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 31/07/2025
climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications...
climatecommunication.yale.edu
What prompts interest in climate change? - Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
In June and July 2025, a majority of Americans experienced an extreme heatwave that pushed summer temperatures to record-breaking highs in places like New York, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. As ...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 31/07/2025
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.
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Matthew E. Kahn @mattkahn1966.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
open.substack.com/pub/matthewe...
open.substack.com
A New Supermodel Competition!
What wildfire risk model should the California Insurance Regulator use to determine whether "price gouging" on insurance premiums is taking place?
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 22/07/2025
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%
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 13/06/2025
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...
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Raahil Madhok @raamadhok.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
🚨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)
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 22/05/2025
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.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 18/04/2025
First Street Foundation projected unhealthy air days over the next 15 years:
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 14/04/2025
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...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 11/04/2025
RIP. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/c...
nytimes.com
E.P.A. Is Said to Plan Deep Cuts to Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
Officials are moving to eliminate requirements that most big polluters disclose how much carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases they emit.
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Michael Wiebe @michaelwiebe.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
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/
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 31/03/2025
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=...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 27/03/2025
What’s the longest footnote you have ever read
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 27/03/2025
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."
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 25/03/2025
The funny thing about the logged x-axis is it shows that utility is concave in wealth
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 24/03/2025
This is so odd to me. CoreLogic was a much better name.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 24/03/2025
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
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 19/03/2025
Earth's orbit is an open access resource. Satellites debris creates congestion and, unchecked, could render regions of orbit unusable ("Kessler syndrome"). @akhilrao.bsky.social and Rondina (2025) characterize the conditions under which this could occur. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 17/03/2025
New NBER paper shows dramatic effects of NYC's congestion pricing in contrast with a set of control cities: A large reduction in travel times on roadways—average speeds increased by 15%—combined with a substantial reduction in vehicular emissions. www.nber.org/system/files...
After the creation of New York City's congestion relief zone, average trip speeds increased significantly on trips within and to the central business district in Manhattan.After the introduction of the congestion relief zone, vehicular emissions in New York City's central business district declined substantially.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 17/03/2025
Cool results by @reidtaylor.bsky.social, Erich Muehlegger. "The Effects of Competition in the Retail Gasoline Industry" • Entry of gas stations lowers nearby prices. • Effects are persistent. • Effects decline w/ distance. • No effect following nearby exits. www.nber.org/papers/w33569
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Michael Wara @michaelwara.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
An article with a long and detailed discussion of the utility wildfire risk issue in California today. Worth reading if you are interested in these issues and the broader one of how to socialize these growing costs. www.utilitydive.com/news/insuran...
utilitydive.com
Insurance — public or private — likely won’t stop utility wildfire risks, experts say
California's state-run wildfire insurance fund was an industry-leading model. Now investors and experts are voicing concerns about its potential collapse.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 13/03/2025
You love to see it
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 13/03/2025
Seems like the experience in Oregon has been different? Free paper for someone… bsky.app/profile/ande...
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 13/03/2025
Hopefully this “share increase” has not come with decreases in total quantity either! Was that all Census Building Permit Survey data?
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 13/03/2025
Argh!
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 12/03/2025
The usual suspects! Is it posted as a WP? I couldn't find it on their websites... unless it's their paper about upzoning in Cook County, IL.
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 12/03/2025
Has anyone looked at whether duplex/quadplex infill laws in Oregon and Washington have resulted in more housing? I wasn't aware of the barriers ("poison pills") that existed in California's previous attempt.
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Raahil Madhok @raamadhok.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Check out this VoxDev writeup of my recently accepted paper on infrastructure, institutions, and biodiversity conservation! @voxdev.bsky.social
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Jacob Gellman @jacobgellman.com · 03/03/2025
Excited to announce I am joining Oregon State University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Economics starting Fall 2025. Thank you to my colleagues, coauthors, and friends across UAA, the UC system, and RFF. Looking forward to the rain and trees in the PNW.
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