Presenters: Matthew Kahn, Provost Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences, University of Southern California; and Maria Waldinger, Deputy Director of the Ifo Center for Labor and Demographic Economics.

Chair: Terry Anderson, John and Jean DeNault Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution.

Maria Waldinger provided a historical analysis of how societies have adapted to climate conditions. The oldest adaptation strategy was migration, she explained, which was more easily achieved when societies were nomadic and there were no political boundaries. More modern societies have adopted various processes to ensure their survival. She explained that crop failures were an omnipresent feature of European societies between the 14th and 19th centuries, a period of regional cooling that has been referred to as the “little ice age.”

Matthew Khan outlined to the audience how markets can provide optimal incentives for adaption to climate change and reduce its economic effects. If enough people are facing a challenge, markets are the mechanisms that can empower entrepreneurs to produce and deliver innovations, Kahn maintained.

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