About

Olivier Deschenes is the Department Vice Chair and a Professor of Economics at UC Santa Barbara. His research expertise spans Environmental Economics, Health Economics, and Labor Economics. He is a member of the Consortium for Applied Research in Economics, contributing to interdisciplinary research efforts within the department. His role as Department Vice Chair indicates a leadership position within the academic community at UC Santa Barbara's Department of Economics.

Research topics

• Demography
• Geography
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Medicine
• Biology
• Development economics
• Business
• Demographic economics
• Economics
• Environmental health
• Environmental resource management
• Fishery
• Chemistry
• Environmental science
• Economic growth
• Endocrinology
• Ecology
• Telecommunications

Selected publications

• The Climate Adaptation Feedback

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-02-01

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  Many behavioral responses to climate change are carbon-intensive, raising concerns that adaptation may cause additional warming.The sign and magnitude of this feedback depend on how increased emissions from cooling balance against reduced emissions from heating across space and time.We present an empirical approach that forecasts the effect of future adaptive energy use on global average temperature over the 21st century.We find energy-based adaptation will lower global mean surface temperature in 2099 by 0.12 degrees Celsius (0.07 degrees Celsius) relative to baseline projections under RCP8.5 (RCP4.5)and avoid 1.8 (0.6) trillion USD ($2019) in damages.Energybased adaptation lowers business-as-usual emissions for 85% of countries, reducing the mitigation required to meet their unilateral Nationally Determined Contributions under the UNFCCC by 20% on average.These findings indicate that while business-as-usual adaptive energy use is unlikely to accelerate warming, it raises important implications for countries' existing mitigation commitments.

  PublisherDOI

• Internal Migration and the Spatial Reorganization of Agriculture

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Quantifying the global climate feedback from energy-based adaptation

  Nature Communications · 2025-04-25 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Many behavioral responses to climate change are carbon-intensive, raising concerns that adaptation may cause additional warming. The sign and magnitude of this feedback depend on how increased emissions from cooling balance against reduced emissions from heating across space and time. We present an empirical approach that forecasts the effect of future adaptive energy use on global average temperature over the 21 st century. We estimate that energy-based adaptation will lower global mean surface temperature in 2099 by 0.07 to 0.12 °C relative to baseline projections under Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5. This cooling avoids 0.6 to 1.8 trillion U.S. Dollars ($2019) in damages, depending on the baseline emissions scenario. Energy-based adaptation lowers business-as-usual emissions for 85% of countries, reducing the mitigation required to meet their unilateral Nationally Determined Contributions by 20% on average. These findings indicate that while business-as-usual adaptive energy use is unlikely to accelerate warming, it raises important implications for countries’ existing mitigation commitments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Input subsidies and the depletion of natural capital: Chinese distant water fishing

  Journal of Environmental Economics and Management · 2025-02-06

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Equitable low-carbon transition pathways for California’s oil extraction

  UNC Libraries · 2025-03-21

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Internal Migration and the Spatial Reorganization of Agriculture

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-05-01 · 2 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  This paper studies how agricultural production responds to the loss of agricultural labor during the process of urbanization and structural transformation.Using household microdata from India and exogenous variation in migration opportunities induced by urban income shocks, we show that agricultural households do not systematically replace lost labor with increased capital.Instead, they cultivate less land and lower their use of agricultural technology, reducing crop production.Resulting changes in land and crop prices induce non-migrant households to expand agricultural investments and production.In aggregate, market adaptation mitigates over three-fourths of the direct agricultural losses from urbanization.Spatial reorganization moves food production from land near urban areas toward more remote areas with lower emigration.

  PublisherDOI

• Extreme Temperatures, Health, and Retirement

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The Climate Adaptation Feedback

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The impact of air pollution on petcare utilization

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-09-30 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Air pollution is one of the leading causes of morbidity and premature mortality globally. A large literature documents the adverse impacts of ambient air pollution on human health. In contrast, there is a lack of comparable research studying the effects of air pollution on animal health. We fill this gap, utilizing 5 y of data on over seven million visits to veterinary practices across the United Kingdom. Leveraging within-city variation in daily monitor-measured air pollution levels, we find that increases in fine particulate matter (i.e., PM 2.5 ) are associated with significant increases in the number of vet visits for both cats and dogs. In aggregate, these estimates suggest that reducing ambient PM 2.5 levels to a maximum of 5 μg per cubic meter as recommended by the World Health Organization would result in a 0.7 to 2.5% reduction in vet visits.

  PublisherDOI

• Corrigendum: Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system (2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 025001)

  Environmental Research Energy · 2024-09-17

  erratumOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael Greenstone

  University of Chicago

  101 shared

• Alan Barreca

  68 shared

• Joseph Shapiro

  University of California, Berkeley

  42 shared

• Karen Clay

  Carnegie Mellon University

  26 shared

• Melanie Guldi

  19 shared

• Enrico Berkes

  18 shared

• Ruben Gaetani

  University of Toronto

  18 shared

• Jeffrey Lin

  Tufts University

  18 shared

Labs

• Consortium for Applied Research in EconomicsPI

  UCSB Consortium for Applied Research in Economics members.