About

Alan Barreca is an Associate Professor at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, having joined the institute in 2017. Prior to this, he worked in the Economics Department at Tulane University in New Orleans. He earned a PhD in Economics from UC Davis in 2008. His research primarily investigates the reasons why people living in certain climates have more economic advantages and better health than others. His ongoing work aims to identify ways to mitigate both the current costs of weather shocks and the future costs of climate change. His research has broad public appeal and has been covered by various media outlets, including CNN, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, Mashable, The Independent, CityLab, Reuters, NY Times, and Washington Post. Additionally, his work on the fertility costs of climate change was featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Alan has published articles across a diverse set of peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics & Management, American Journal of Epidemiology, and Journal of Human Resources. His accomplishments include membership in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). His recent projects involve using cooling centers to prevent heat-related illness and death in Los Angeles, and his research addresses issues like the impact of high ambient temperatures on delivery timing and gestational lengths, as well as the economic and health effects of climate change.

Research topics

• Economics
• Environmental science
• Agricultural economics
• Natural resource economics
• Medicine
• Ecology
• Business
• Economic growth
• Demography
• Finance
• Engineering
• Biology
• Geography
• Environmental health

Selected publications

• Hot Weather, Undernutrition, and Adaptation in Rural India

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-07-01

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  We examine the impact of temperature during the growing season on household diets in the subsequent year in rural India, a setting with a high prevalence of small family farms.High growing season temperatures reduce crop yields, which would presumably reduce incomes and home-grown food for consumption.However, household adaptation could mitigate how the reductions in yields affect diets.We find that heat increases the number of strongly undernourished households in the subsequent year, as measured by the consumption of calories, iron, zinc, thiamine, and niacin.We also find suggestive evidence that households adapt to heat-induced losses of home-grown crops by purchasing more food.

  PublisherDOI

• Hot Weather, Undernutrition, and Adaptation in Rural India

  Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists · 2025-10-14

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Hot Weather, Undernutrition, and Adaptation in Rural India

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Effects of Hot Weather on Rural Indian Diets

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Adaptation to Environmental Change: Agriculture and the Unexpected Incidence of the Acid Rain Program

  American Economic Journal Economic Policy · 2022-02-01 · 16 citations

  articleSenior author

  The Acid Rain Program (ARP) cut sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emissions from power plants in the United States, with considerable benefits. We show this also reduced ambient sulfate levels, which lowered agriculture productivity through decreased soil sulfur. Using plant-level SO 2 emissions and an atmospheric transport model, we estimate the relationship between airborne sulfate levels and yields for corn and soybeans. We estimate crop revenue losses for these two crops at around $1–$1.5 billion per year, with accompanying decreases in land value. Back-of-the-envelope calculations of the costs to replace lost sulfur suggest producer responses were limited and suboptimal. (JEL Q15, Q24, Q53, Q58)

  PublisherDOI

• High temperatures and electricity disconnections for low-income homes in California

  Nature Energy · 2022 · 41 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Environmental science
  • Economics
  PublisherDOI

• Adaptation to Environmental Change: Agriculture and the Unexpected Incidence of the Acid Rain Program

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2021-03-01 · 6 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  The Acid Rain Program (ARP) cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from power plants in the United States, with considerable benefits. We show this also reduced ambient sulfate levels, which lowered agriculture productivity through decreased soil sulfur. Using plant-level SO2 emissions and an atmospheric transport model, we estimate the relationship between airborne sulfate levels and yields for corn and soybean. We estimate crop revenue losses for these two crops around $1-1.5 billion per year, with accompanying decreases in land value. Back of the envelope calculations of the costs to replace lost sulfur suggest producer responses were limited and suboptimal.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Long-run pollution exposure and mortality: Evidence from the Acid Rain Program

  Journal of Public Economics · 2021 · 53 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Environmental science
  • Demography
  • Environmental health
  PublisherDOI

• Adaptation to Environmental Change: Agriculture and the Unexpected Incidence of the Acid Rain Program

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Towards an EU Charter of the Fundamental Rights of Nature

  2020-01-01 · 13 citations

  article
  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Nicholas J. Sanders

  145 shared

• Matthew Neidell

  Columbia University

  135 shared

• Olivier Deschênes

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  68 shared

• Price Fishback

  57 shared

• Shawn Kantor

  Florida State University

  54 shared

• Melanie Guldi

  42 shared

• Karen Clay

  Carnegie Mellon University

  36 shared

• Jason M. Lindo

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  31 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Environmental Science and Engineering

  University of California, Los Angeles

Awards & honors

• Membership in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER…
• Membership in the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)