## berkeley-solomon-hsiang-climate-economist-profile

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### Profile overview
- Solomon Hsiang (pronounced “Shung”) is a 37-year-old economist and climate physicist leading the Global Policy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.
- Hsiang combines econometrics, large-scale data, and advanced computing with interdisciplinary teams to study climate change, development, violence, migration, and disasters.
- Notable rapid outputs and career milestones:
  - Over a 10-day period in March 2020, Hsiang and 14 researchers gathered data on pandemic policies and produced a paper that appeared June 8, 2020, in Nature.
  - The Nature paper estimated that anti-contagion policies averted 495 million infections.
  - The Nature paper has been accessed 309,000 times and cited by 361 news outlets (as reported by Nature).
  - Hsiang won tenure within two years at Berkeley and promotion to full professor in five, at the age of 34.

### Research methods and major findings
- Methodology:
  - Uses giant databases, massive computing power, and large interdisciplinary teams to apply econometric tools to policy-relevant questions.
  - Emphasizes granular, local-level climate and economic data to document impacts across sectors and geographies.
- Selected empirical findings:
  - For 28 countries in Central America and the Caribbean, using data from 1970 through 2006, each 1ºC increase in surface temperature was associated with a 2.5 percent reduction in economic output (master’s thesis; paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2010).
  - Rising temperatures increase civil conflict and slow economic growth.
  - As tropical storms grow more intense, economic effects are more severe and last longer.
  - Solar geoengineering (mimicking volcanic eruptions to dim the sun) would reduce global crop yields.
  - COVID-19 study (June 8, 2020) concluded that anti-contagion policies significantly slowed disease spread and averted 495 million infections.

### Climate Impact Lab and the social cost of carbon
- Climate Impact Lab details:
  - Grew out of the 2015 book Economic Risks of Climate Change: An American Prospectus.
  - Led by Hsiang, Michael Greenstone, Robert Kopp, and Trevor Houser.
  - The lab is a six-year-old research consortium deploying more than 30 researchers across Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and Rutgers.
  - The lab uses Rhodium Group’s computing power and includes economists, climate scientists, data engineers, and risk analysts.
  - The lab aims to publish an initial version of its calculation of the global cost of carbon within a year (from the article’s publication).
- Social cost of carbon context and figures:
  - The world emits more than 30 billion tons of CO2 every year (International Energy Agency, as cited).
  - CO2 will stay in the atmosphere for 1,000 years.
  - Historical U.S. government estimates and proposals:
    - 2010 Obama administration estimate: $51 a ton.
    - Trump administration estimate: $7 a ton.
    - Case for at least $125 a ton (argument by Tamma Carleton and Michael Greenstone, as cited).
- Hsiang’s stated objective: calculate the comprehensive future impact on the world of each additional ton of CO2—the social cost of carbon—using data-driven, transparent methods.

### Policy relevance, testimony, and debates
- Policy relevance:
  - Hsiang testified in 2019 that the direct thermal effects of warming over the next 80 years could reduce American incomes by $4.7 trillion to $10.4 trillion.
  - He testified that combined effects of climate change on agriculture, energy, labor, health, crime, and coastal communities could cost the United States 1.2 percent of gross domestic product for each 1ºC increase in temperature.
  - He warned that overall death rates, suicides, sexual assaults, murders, and birth-related harm would all rise significantly with warming.
- Uptake and influence:
  - Organizations citing Hsiang’s work include the Federal Reserve, the Congressional Budget Office, the Environmental Protection Agency, the United Nations, the Bank of England, and the IMF.
  - After the June 2020 COVID-19 study, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention engaged Hsiang’s group to analyze a massive database on every disease-control policy worldwide.
- Debates and critiques:
  - Critics (e.g., Richard Tol) argue that using weather shocks to study climate change overstates impacts because weather shocks are unexpected while climate change is slow and predictable.
  - Other scholars (e.g., Joseph Stiglitz and Nicholas Stern) argue that calculating a precise social cost of carbon is unnecessary for policy and that policies should be built around the Paris Agreement goals.
  - Hsiang responds that innovations to study adaptation and the use of data and econometrics yield different findings from established integrated assessment models (e.g., FUND), and that data-based, transparent estimates are necessary to guide policy.

### Perspectives and broader stance
- Hsiang’s framing:
  - Describes climate change as the fundamental 21st century challenge for economics—comparable to slavery in the 19th century and socialism in the 20th century.
  - Emphasizes economic framing because climate change grows out of economic activity and managing it involves economic trade-offs.
  - Argues against both underreaction and overreaction: warns “We shouldn’t overspend on climate change” while also emphasizing high stakes and the need for accurate valuation to avoid astronomical misallocation of resources.
  - Advocates for scaling up the number of economists and scientists using large-scale data collection, high-powered computing, and evidence-based systems to manage planetary resources.

### Personal background and human details
- Education and early influences:
  - Undergraduate: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studied earth, atmospheric, and planetary science; added economics courses in senior year.
  - Graduate: Columbia University doctorate in sustainable development.
  - Postdoctoral work at Princeton and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- Personal anecdotes:
  - Parents were professors (math and computer science) at Syracuse University.
  - Longtime partner Brenda Chen (Google researcher), with whom he collaborated on the early COVID-19 response; they have a daughter.
  - Hobbies include oil painting, snowboarding, surfing, rock climbing, birding, and pottery.

*Source: berkeley-solomon-hsiang-climate-economist-profile (Finance & Development, September 2021).*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2021/september/berkeley-solomon-hsiang-climate-economist-profile.pdf_