The research race and Cyclone Sandy

In empirical economic research we live in the age of the randomistas where whole departments do nothing else but look for random events to give them some variation to identify a causal relation. Cyclone Sandy looks like providing a lot of random variation so you can bet your bottom dollar that right at this moment whole cohorts of PhDs and junior researchers in the US and beyond are thinking of how they can get a top paper out of Cyclone Sandy. The race is on. Let us reflect on the sorts of things we should expect to see emerge.

The early birds in the race will have got going over a week ago when the storm was approaching. They will be looking for anticipation effects and trying to observe behaviour you would not normally see ‘in the wild’. Expect papers to come out on hoarding behaviour,on anticipating  investors betting on companies that would benefit or lose from a cyclone, on the speed with which different groups are warned of and react to official information, and on such things as the types of people who loot in such circumstances. Researchers on these types of topics will have their students and Research Assistants strategically placed, with our without cameras and sattelite images, to observe the goings on. The really smart ones will be measuring stuff in novel ways, such as via sets of webcams.

Another horde that is slightly less quick off the block and has to make do with data that can be collected afterwards will be planning papers on the effects of something on something. They will for instance look for variations in affected areas, comparing neighbourhoods that were damaged by the storm versus one that just escaped. They will compare how people subsequently become more or less risk-averse, how their future savings decisions are effected by the wealth shocks, how their parenting styles changes with the experience, etc.

Other random variation caused by Cyclone Sandy will similarly be milked for papers. The several days in which particular stock exchanges were off-line can be used to study shocks in shares since the several days mean there is a build-up of information as yet unpriced in the shares.

The shock to leisure will also be used for all kinds of studies. Undoubtedly someone will try to calculate how many more children were born because of the increase in leisure caused by the storm. The happiness within relations and of whole regions in response to the shock will turn up in some paper or another. And do not forget the random impacts on environments that come from the churning of the seas: some biologist is going to make a paper out of that.

The fact that the shock is in America and hits the rich East Coast where many of the major universities are guarantees lots of attention in the top journals. Hence it will be a veritable race to write up the results and beat the competition. I would be exceedingly surprised if we would not see a paper on some Sandy-related event within the next month. Anyone who waits longer than that to start is way behind the pack and within around 3 months all the easy pickings will be taken and only the more longitudinal or in-depth stuff will still be worth doing.

If you are a student looking for something to write on that has a shot at the top journals, the message is clear: get going on a project right now. Doesn’t really matter what on and whether it is really of economic interest or not. As long as you can argue you get a clean measure of the impact of X on Y, you are in with a chance.

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Dallas Beaufort
Dallas Beaufort
12 years ago

Man made global warming needs not introduction in this space as Green Labor look for more nanny state public sector attachments to further their lost causes.

Jim Rose
Jim Rose
12 years ago

The economics of natural disasters was all but none existent prior to Katrina.

Jack Hirshleifer had had the field to himself. He commented that there were no entries on disasters in the index to the New Palgrave of economics. It was handy to have a great applied price theorist on the case since the 1960s and his time at Rand studying factors that might contribute to post-nuclear war recovery.

There is a vast literature on the sociology of natural disasters.

JubJang Chaisarn
JubJang Chaisarn
12 years ago

Clearly Sandy is a manipulated storm.

JubJang Chaisarn
JubJang Chaisarn
12 years ago

I wouldn’t be claiming that this is a natural disaster. Perhaps a sociology of artificial and clandestine disasters would be more appropriate.

perplexed
perplexed
12 years ago

The new ‘Jersey Shore’ – people once lived here. A sociological study of forced urban removal by government mandate following disaster.

Elise
Elise
12 years ago

At a tangent, on possible research topics, when is someone going to look at the excessive use of tasers, the possibility that they are a technological form of whipping people, and its possible stimulation of sadistic elements in the police force?

Paul Frijters
Paul Frijters
12 years ago
Reply to  Elise

that is an easy one to predict: most likely after a string of high-profile cases of police abusing tasers, preferably caught on video. Might have happened already since I don’t follow that kind of news much

Chris Lloyd
Chris Lloyd
12 years ago

Yes. It has been a fantastic month for economists. The baby bonus for the second child has been reduced as well.

Paul Frijters
Paul Frijters
12 years ago
Reply to  Chris Lloyd

which, according to the research by Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh might cost lives. It was buried in the footnotes of their paper, but the original baby bonus probably cost some lives because of the delays in birth. According to the mechanism they found, any alteration tied to a specific date that is not already in the past can thus lead to similar bring-forward or bring-backwards decisions in birthing, in turn leading to higher-than-normal mortality.

Mick
12 years ago

Research science, climate, and history, and it will all show that Man’s final fate will be caused by himself.

With elections just around the corner, this ties in beautifully.

http://cartoonmick.wordpress.com/editorial-political/#jp-carousel-205

Cheers

Mick

SJ
SJ
12 years ago

Whoa.

“according to the research by Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh might cost lives. It was buried in the footnotes of their paper, but the original baby bonus probably cost some lives because of the delays in birth. According to the mechanism they found, any alteration tied to a specific date that is not already in the past can thus lead to similar bring-forward or bring-backwards decisions in birthing, in turn leading to higher-than-normal mortality.”

This is enormous.

I’ve just caught Fritjers out in a huge deliberate lie. That’s a total misrepresentation of Leigh.

I’d like to hear Nick’s input here.

SJ
SJ
12 years ago

No, I take that back. I misread.

Paul frijters
Paul frijters
12 years ago

I seem to have a personal stalker in SJ intent on catching me out. I feel more famous already. If only he were not so rude I would not mind.