Wildfires present an increasing threat to many parts of the United States due to climate change. This dissertation explores a range of challenges arising from this threat in economics and policy, identifying several areas that require attention in shaping the response to wildfires -- specifically, the role of sociopolitical pressure in fire suppression, population health impacts from wildfire smoke, and climate policy.

The first chapter examines whether sociopolitical pressure, measured by the newspaper coverage of wildfires, affects the allocation of personnel and aerial resources during wildfire suppression. Using a rich dataset of wildfire events from the Incident Status Summary (ICS-209) reports between 1999 and 2014, the study identifies causal effects using (1) a comprehensive set of variables controlling for wildfire threat, (2) the exogenous variation in the publication of significant historical events occurring just before the discovery of the wildfires. The analysis reveals that increased newspaper coverage of wildfires leads to significantly higher personnel usage. The paper does not find a significant effect of newspaper coverage on aircraft usage.

The second chapter investigates the impacts of wildfire smoke on population health. Wildfire smoke and its impacts are notoriously challenging to estimate since smoke can travel hundreds of miles away from its source. Using a nationwide satellite-derived dataset of wildfire smoke plumes and infant mortality data from U.S. death certificates, the study identifies a significant effect of wildfire smoke exposure on infant mortality at the county-month level between 2006 and 2017. The results suggest that wildfire smoke causes approximately 56 infant (0 to 1 month old) deaths in the U.S. annually.

The third chapter studies the interaction between wildfires and carbon sequestration programs by examining California's U.S. Forest Projects program, a subdivision of the Compliance Offset Program. The analysis reveals that forests enrolled in the program have higher risks of severe wildfires than comparable forests that are not enrolled. The design of the program likely attracts projects with a higher chance of losing sequestered carbon to wildfires, indicating adverse selection based on wildfire risks. These findings underscore the importance of accurately addressing wildfire risks in carbon sequestration programs.

Farming has an elevated rate of suicide in the U.S. and elsewhere, which draws attention to the mental well-being of farmers and other agricultural workers. There is a rich empirical and conceptual literature exploring the reasons behind the high rate of farmer suicide. Yet little rigorous study addresses the determinants of farmer suicide in the U.S. This study explores a number of hypotheses as to causal factors explaining the high farmer suicide rate, including weather factors (e.g., extreme temperatures, variable precipitation) and economic factors such as price and income volatility. A theoretical model is developed linking the weather and economic factors to a farmer’s suicide decision. A farmer chooses between work effort and leisure, a level of consumption, levels of production inputs, and the amount of savings to maximize her utility given her budget constraint and time endowment. In a static model, a bad weather shock can have a "snowballing" effect that reduces farm income and also reduces utility from leisure and health through the work-leisure trade-off. Severe adverse weather outcomes can possibly diminish a farmer's utility and cause a spontaneous decision to commit suicide in extreme cases. Based on the model, we hypothesize that the marginal effect of harmful weather on farmer suicide is positive. Successive realization of bad weather and chronic poor economic conditions are positively associated with farmer suicide.

We combine the CDC nonpublic vital statistics, PRISM daily weather data, and the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service data as a county-year panel to estimate the marginal effects of weather and economic factors on farmer suicides. Empirical analysis, based upon a Poisson regression model with agricultural district fixed effects, shows extreme heat is positively associated with farmer suicides. There is no clear evidence of the effect of precipitation on farmer suicide in counties without irrigation. Chronic, not idiosyncratic, poor economic conditions induce farmer suicide. The results are robust to alternative specifications including or excluding year fixed effects.