Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Management
First Advisor
King, Marissa
Abstract
Climate change is a multifaceted and insidious grand challenge facing the world. Natural disasters and extreme weather conditions, made more common by climate change, will cause enormous ecological, human, and economic damage across the globe. Businesses, organizations, and markets are critically implicated in climate change due to their culpability for greenhouse gas emissions and their roles in building or hindering adaptive capacity and mediating transfers of wealth resulting from climate change. In my dissertation, I investigate how individuals, businesses, and markets respond to climate-related disasters and extreme weather conditions and how these processes contribute to patterns of inequality in the United States. In the first chapter, I use individual-level data from the Public Use Microdata Sample to examine the effect of temperature shocks on adaptive migration choices. Using individual characteristics, I consider implications for Americans in their prime working years. In the second chapter, I use county-level house price data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency to investigate the role of wildfire smoke exposure in climate gentrification processes. I also explore a possible mechanism that explains the observed effect. Last, in the third chapter, I use business closure and opening data from the Business Dynamics Statistics to study the impact of hurricanes on small businesses and entrepreneurs. I examine how regional demographics and industrial characteristics moderate these effects and how this moderation maps onto racial differences in access to credit. This dissertation contributes to research on the consequences of climate change and the natural environment for workers, entrepreneurs, and markets and the adaptations they engage in. The first and second chapters contribute to research on different adaptations to climate change (migration in response to extreme temperatures and relocation to urban centers in response to wildfire smoke). The second chapter also builds on research on climate gentrification, extending this theory to a new empirical setting. Further, this chapter extends theory on climate gentrification by identifying a new dimension of adaptation (preference for urban density) along which such gentrification can occur. The third chapter contributes to research on minority entrepreneurship and access to credit. This chapter also builds on research on exogenous shocks and small businesses.
Recommended Citation
Holdaway, Taylor Martin, "Business as Usual: Organizational and Market Responses to the Natural Environment and Magnification of Inequality" (2024). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1298.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1298
