Work in progress

The economic impacts of flooding and the role of flood forecasts in reducing damages in the UK
(with J.C. Villaseñor-Derbez)

The economics of climate gentrification
(with D. Kelly and C. Timmins)

Pricing strategic responses in real estate markets with Hedonic methods
(with D. Kelly and C. Timmins)

Whale dynamics and carbon sequestration potential
(with M. Savoca and J.C. Villaseñor-Derbez)

The socio-economic benefits of augmented observations in hurricane forecasts
(with I. Rudik and D. Cardoso)

The impacts of tropical cyclones on trade flows in the Pacific Ocean
(with K. Abe, J.C Villaseñor-Derbez and K. Tanaka)

The impact of hurricanes on commercial fisheries in the US
(with J. Agar and J.C. Villaseñor-Derbez)

Working papers

The Social Value of Predicting Hurricanes

[Forthcoming at AEJ: Economic Policy]
(with I. Rudik) Link
Coverage: NBER NPR - Marketplace (1) NPR - Marketplace (2) Planet Money - The Indicator Yale - Climate Connections
Some More News

What is the impact and value of hurricane forecasts? We study this question using newly-collected forecast data for the universe of land-falling US hurricanes between 2005–2022. We find higher wind speed forecasts increase pre-landfall protective spending. Erroneous under-forecasts of wind speed increase hurricane damage and after-hurricane rebuilding expenditures. Our main contribution is a new theoretically-grounded approach for estimating the marginal value of forecast improvements. We find that the average annual improvement reduced total per-hurricane costs, inclusive of unobserved protective spending, by over $500,000 per county. Improvements since 2007 reduced costs by 19%, averaging $2 billion per hurricane. This exceeds the annual budget for all federal weather forecasting.

The Economic and Environmental Cost of Pirate Avoidance

[R&R at Nature Communications]
(with J.C. Villaseñor-Derbez and Amelia Burfoot) Link

Modern-day piracy remains a pervasive problem for the global maritime industry, yet its full economic costs and underlying mechanisms are largely unquantified. We explore this problem by pairing detailed pirate-encounter records with satellite tracking from more than 22 million shipping voyages between 2012 and 2023. Here, we show that vessels systematically reroute around recent encounters, with associated excess travel costs of over US$200 million per year and additional environmental damages of nearly US$582 million annually.

Competitiveness in American Seafood Requires Promoting Fisheries to be Resilient

[R&R at Fish and Fisheries]
(with G. McDermott, G. McDonald, J.C. Villaseñor-Derbez) Link

Recent federal executive actions prioritize restoring American seafood competitiveness through deregulation and production targets, yet these policies overlook the fundamental threat posed by climate-driven natural hazards. We argue that true seafood competitiveness cannot be achieved through production gains alone; it requires treating disaster resilience as a form of industrial policy. We use the Gulf of Mexico fisheries as an example of a system increasingly exposed to natural hazards, the main of which are hurricanes. The Gulf generates approximately $910 million annually in commercial dockside revenue, supports over 250,000 jobs, and accounts for one-third of the nation’s recreational fishing expenditures, all concentrated in states with the highest hurricane exposure in the nation. As such, hurricanes impose a double jeopardy on these fisheries by simultaneously degrading ecosystems and destroying physical infrastructure. And while federal institutions such as NOAA and FEMA coordinate post-disaster relief, these mechanisms remain reactive and administratively burdensome, leaving the sector vulnerable to compounding losses. This climate vulnerability is not unique to the Gulf nor to hurricanes. Other climate-driven impacts such as marine heatwaves and harmful algal blooms are becoming increasingly prevalent and impose analogous shocks in the Gulf, as well as on Atlantic and Pacific fisheries. We propose a three-pillar framework that encompasses adaptive governance, a politically insulated safety net, and quantified climate risk assessments as the foundation for a durable, competitive, and resilient American seafood industry.

Water Market Dynamics in the Presence of Environmental Variability and Government Subsidies

[Undergoing revisions]
(with A. Ayres) Link

The challenges associated with effectively managing water resources are highly salient in arid regions of the world. Water markets have been promoted as an efficient solution, and the foundational requirement for such an approach – a system of comparatively well-defined, tradable property rights – has emerged in some particularly water-stressed areas. Yet, comprehensive, data-driven empirical assessments of water markets’ effectiveness in promoting timely reallocation remain scarce. In this paper, we explore whether environmental shocks spur market transactions and also study how public subsidies play a role in these dynamics. We compile a unique dataset that accounts for all recorded water right transactions, all subsidies for water use efficiency, as well as precipitation and temperature patterns in Chile from 1990 to 2020. Our panel dataset enables estimation of the impacts of both persistent environmental shocks (i.e., droughts) and government subsidies at sub-national scale. We provide evidence on water market performance in the face of environmental variability, as well as the nation-wide effects of government subsidies for irrigation technology on exchange.

The Health Cost of Unexpected Shocks

(with A. Hollingsworth and I. Rudik) [Available upon request]

Extreme events often impose severe health costs when they arrive unexpectedly. This paper examines how forecast accuracy mitigates these impacts, using hurricanes as a natural experiment. Using county-level mortality data covering all US landfalling hurricanes between 2005 and 2022, we find that stronger wind exposure and forecast underpredictions both significantly increase elderly mortality, with effects persisting up to three months after landfall. A one m/s increase in wind speed raises deaths among individuals aged 85 and older by 1.6 per 100,000, while underestimating wind speeds by 8–10 m/s produces roughly 40 excess deaths per 100,000. We estimate more accurate forecast predictions generate between $27 to $57 million in counties exposed to hurricane-force winds.

Transboundary Marine Protected Areas as Adaptation to Climate Change

(with W. Cheung and J. Palacios-Abrantes) Link

Marine ecosystems often span political boundaries, posing challenges for effective conservation and fisheries governance. We develop a dynamic bioeconomic model of transboundary fisheries management and assess how strategically placed marine protected areas (TMPAs) can mitigate the inefficiencies of decentralized decision-making. We calibrate the model using projections from a Dynamic Bioclimatic Envelope Model (DBEM) covering 43 species in the Tropical Eastern Pacific region under two climate scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP5-8.5). Our results highlight the conditions under which TMPAs improve welfare and conservation outcomes even in the absence of formal cooperation. These insights are timely as climate-driven range shifts alter the spatial distribution of shared marine resources.

Peer-reviewed

Wintergalen, E. W. & Molina, R., 2025. The impact of proximity to urban areas on the dissolution of fishing cooperatives: Evidence from Mexico. Coastal and Ocean Management, 270, 107858. Link

Wintergalen, E. W., Fulton, S., & Molina, R., 2024. Trans-Sector Livelihood Resilience in an Urban Small-Scale Fishing Community. The Journal of Development Studies, 1–20. Link

Dario, C., Molina, R., & Kelly, D. L., 2024. Public preferences for coastal adaptation: Economic evidence from a discrete choice experiment for hard structures and nature-based solutions in Miami, Florida. Marine Policy, 165, 106217. Link

Molina, R, Costello, C. and Kaffine, D., 2024. Sharing and expanding the co-benefits of conservation. Ecological Economics, 218(2024), 108113. Link

Ovando, D., Liu, O., Molina, R., Parma, A. and Szuwalski, C., 2023. Global effects of marine protected areas on food security are unknown. Nature, 621(7979), E34-E36. Link

Kelly, D. and Molina, R., 2023. Adaptation Infrastructure and its Effects in Property Values in the Face of Climate Impacts. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists [Lead Article] 10(6), p.1405-1438. Link
Coverage: UM-Press JAERE

Pearson, H.C., Savoca, M.S., Costa, D.P., Lomas, M.W., Molina, R., Pershing, A.J., Smith, C.R., Villaseñor-Derbez, J.C., Wing, S.R. and Roman, J., 2022. Whales in the carbon cycle: can recovery remove carbon dioxide?. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 38(3), p.238-249. Link
Coverage: Bloomberg CNN Washington Post Business Insider Fast Company

Wintergalen, E.W., Oyanedel, R., Villaseñor-Derbez, J.C., Fulton, S. and Molina, R., 2022. Opportunities and challenges for livelihood resilience in urban and rural Mexican small-scale fisheries. Ecology and Society, 27(3), p.46. Link

Molina, R., 2022. The lack of property rights can make natural disasters worse: The case of small-scale fisheries in Chile. Ecological Economics, 200, p.107540. Link

Liu, O.R. and Molina, R., 2021. The persistent transboundary problem in marine natural resource management. Frontiers in Marine Science, p.1292. Link

Molina, R., Letson, D., McNoldy, B., Mozumder, P. and Varkony, M., 2021. Striving for Improvement: The Perceived Value of Improving Hurricane Forecast Accuracy. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 102(7), p.E1408-E1423. Link
Coverage: UM-Press

Ovando, D., Liu, O., Molina, R. and Szuwalski, C., 2021. Models of marine protected areas must explicitly address spatial dynamics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(23), p.e2025958118. Link

Costello, C. and Molina, R., 2021. Transboundary marine protected areas. Resource and Energy Economics, 65, p.101239. Link
Coverage: UM-Press

Palacios-Abrantes, J., Herrera-Correal, J., Rodríguez, S., Brunkow, J. and Molina, R., 2018. Evaluating the bio-economic performance of a Callo de hacha (Atrina maura, Atrina tuberculosa & Pinna rugosa) fishery restoration plan in La Paz, Mexico. PloS one, 13(12), p.e0209431. Link

Liu, O.R., Molina, R., Wilson, M. and Halpern, B.S., 2018. Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition. PeerJ, 6, p.e4733. Link

Molina, R., Cerda, R., González, E. and Hurtado, F., 2012. Simulation model of the scallop (Argopecten purpuratus) farming in northern Chile: some applications in the decision making process. Latin American Journal of Aquatic Research, 40(3), p.679-693. Link

Book chapters

Norambuena, R., González, E., Molina, R. & Gomez, A. 2017. Impacts of Climate Change on Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture in Chile (Chapter 10 – Aquaculture). In: Phillips, B. & Pérez, M. (eds) The Impacts of Climate Change on Fisheries and Aquaculture. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, USA. Link
Coverage: Aqua

González, E., Norambuena, R., Molina, R. & Thomas, F. 2013. Evaluación de potenciales impactos y reducción de la vulnerabilidad de la acuicultura al cambio climático en Chile [Potential Impacts and Reduction of the Aquaculture Vulnerability to Climate Change in Chile]. In: Cambio climático, pesca y acuicultura en América Latina: Potenciales impactos y desafíos para la adaptación. Taller FAO/Centro de investigación Oceanográfica en el Pacifico Sur Oriental (COPAS), Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile. FAO Actas de Pesca y Acuicultura. No. 29. Roma, FAO, 275-335p. Link