Wrenn's work also contributes to the efforts of a $17 million interdisciplinary Penn State-Department of Energy project aimed at understanding how natural hazards create vulnerabilities and risks to society and how societies respond to those risks and adapt to them.
“What we're really trying to do now is take that model and link it to these other infrastructure projects to think about how will people's relative response rates change if there are changes to subsidies, policies or wages?” Wrenn said . “The initial reaction to the farewell might be high, but the feedback effects themselves might dampen some of this effect.”
He said this happens regularly after major hurricanes in the United States.
“People often wonder why people stay behind in these areas,” Wrenn said. “For me as an economist, the answer is intuitive that the feedback effects are beneficial for some. Typically, it is wealthy households with high demand that drive up property prices. When these households move away, they take the pressure off, which means rents go down. Now the real wages actually go up for the people who stay behind.”
This phenomenon reduces the likelihood of a drain occurring.
“Then you add government transfer payments that raise wages, and you actually create an incentive for people to stay in places that aren't particularly safe,” he said.
While there is currently a balance based on available information, Wrenn emphasized the potential influence of climate change on these trends. As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe and understanding of the associated risks evolves, population trends could change in unforeseen ways.
“Humans have never experienced such extreme heat, faster and more intense hurricanes, flooding and sea level rise on a regular basis,” Wrenn said. “Historically, government policy has obscured the risks associated with living in some of these places, particularly in relation to flooding. As more information comes in about what people can expect, not about the last 30 years, but about what to expect in the future, population trends may go in the other direction.
This study was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
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