EXTREME HEAT

Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related death in the United States. These  events are expected to become more frequent and intense as climate change continues. Heat risk is not, however, distributed evenly across the population. Differences in land surface cover due to urbanization result in higher surface and air temperatures in urban areas. Even within cities, temperature variations can be significant due to differences in neighborhood characteristics.

Using rich individual-level administrative records for almost every legal resident in the United States, our work aims to provide systematic evidence on individual-level differences in heat exposure, explores the causes of heat disparities, and provides new evidence on the differential causes of heat exposure on health and productivity.

The Causes and Consequences of Urban Heat Islands

Tridevi Chakma, Jonathan Colmer, John Voorheis

This working paper shows that a hot day increases mortality by six additional deaths per 100,000 for the elderly population living in neighborhoods with a high concentration of impervious surfaces, relative to the median. The increase in mortality among elderly Black Americans following a hot day is three times that of elderly White Americans, and half of this disparity can be attributed to Black individuals living in more impervious neighborhoods. We document that imperviousness is affected by density zoning policies, and that the racial incidence of density is reflected in a long historical process since the Great Migration.

Access to Guns in the Heat of the Moment: More Restrictive Gun Laws Mitigate the Effect of Temperature on Violence

Jonathan Colmer and Jennifer Doleac

Published in the Review of Economics and Statistics we provide evidence that more prohibitive concealed-carry laws attenuate the temperature–homicide relationship. Our findings are consistent with more-prohibitive policy regimes reducing the lethality of altercations.