Hi! I am a PhD candidate at the Environmental and Natural Resources Economics Group of Wageningen University, The Netherlands. I am interested in studying how society adapts to climate change, and how policies to manage climate risk should be designed to be effective and equitable.

My dissertation focuses on strategies for adaptation to flood risk in The Netherlands. For example, I combine geospatial data with a web-based experiment to study how people react to information on flood risk at their address. My CV is here.

Working Papers

Information frictions, overconfidence, and learning: Experimental evidence from a floodplain
PDF | PAP | Replication package and documentation (also in PDF)

Abstract

I use an online experiment to study whether offering information to floodplain residents is sufficient to change their perceived risk exposure and demand for insurance. The participants are offered information on the flood risk profile at their address and on the rules over compensation of flood damages. I find that respondents tend to misperceive their risk category according to publicly available flood maps, but express high levels of confidence in their guesses. When not prompted to engage with the information they are offered, one third of them read nothing. Respondents who are asked to read information on their risk profile tend to stop reading any further and report a lower willingness-to-pay for insurance. However, this effect does not seem to be driven by respondents learning more from the information they are provided with, at least based on how they update their beliefs. Instead, I find suggestive evidence of backlash to information among residents of high risk areas and individuals who initially underestimated their risk category.

Expanding Horizons A Randomized Controlled Trial on Adolescents’ Career Information Acquisition
PDF | PAP
with Esther Gehrke, Friederike Lenel and Claudia Schupp

Abstract

We implement a randomized controlled trial to investigate whether students in lower-secondary school more effectively acquire information about potential career paths if this information is preceded by a task that allows students to explore their own interests and the career information is presented in personalized order. We find that self-exploration in combination with the personalized display increases students’ information acquisition. Students also read about more diverse career paths and shift their focus from occupations that require university education towards those that require a high-school degree.

Household adaptation is misaligned with publicly available flood maps in high-risk communities
with Anna Abatayo and Andries Richter

Abstract

More frequent and intensive flooding events require effective household adaptation measures. Here, we investigate how household adaptation measures relate to objective, expected household damages in the South of the Netherlands. By combining publicly available flood maps, a national hydraulic model, and a large-scale survey, our study reveals a mismatch in spatial patterns of flood risk and adaptation at the household level, emphasizing inequalities in both exposure and adaptation strategies. Further, the study explores the determinants of household adaptation, recognizing the potential amplification of climate-driven inequalities.

Work in Progress

Unequal adaptation to droughts in Brazil, 1985-2020
(with Klaus Fonseca Hoeltgebaum)

Can you engineer a Silicon Valley? Long-run effects of the BioRegio-contest on innovation
with Lorenzo Romero-Fernández