@booklet {park_will_2017, title = {Will We Adapt? Labor Productivity and Adaptation to Climate Change}, number = {17-73}, year = {2017}, publisher = {Harvard Environmental Economics Program}, type = {Discussion Paper}, address = {Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA}, abstract = { This study explores the for labor-related production impacts of temperature stress both for its own interest and to understand the scope for adaptation to climate change. Focusing on non-agricultural output, I find that hot temperature exerts a significant causal impact on local labor product, with substantially larger effects in highly ex-posed industries such as construction, manufacturing, and transportation. Places that experience more extreme heat exposure in expectation (e.g. Houston, Orlando) exhibit lower impacts per hot day than cooler regions (e.g. Boston, San Francisco). A year with 10 additional 90{\textdegree}F days would reduce output per capita in highly exposed sectors by -3.5\% in counties in the coldest quintile and -1.3\%, roughly a third, in the warmest quintile. County-level air-conditioning penetration explains a large proportion of these differences. While these estimates suggest adaptation to heat stress in the long-run, they also imply realistic limits, at least given current technologies. }, author = {Park, Jisung} }