Abstract

Adapting to sea level rise is a complex process that takes place through both public and private decisions, influenced by polices from different and overlapping levels of government, and perhaps most crucially over multiple time scales. Our particular interest is in the tension between short-run adaptation through risk-reducing expenditures and the long-run need for discontinuous responses like large-scale relocation. We approach this topic through examining the interaction of private choices mediated by markets, and public policies toward infrastructure and risk management. We present a model structure and strategy that we believe is both rich enough and sufficiently tractable to begin to make progress on the key determinants of the benefits and costs of alternative policy approaches.

Andy Keeler heads the University of North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute's program in public policy, is a professor in the Department of Economics at East Carolina University, and is Director of UNC-CH's Outer Banks Field Site. He previously held faculty positions at the University of Georgia and the Ohio State University. Keeler served as the Senior Staff Economist for Environment at the President's Council of Economic Advisers (2000-2001) where he was a member of the US negotiating team for climate change and a diplomatic representative to OECD meetings on coordinating national sustainability policies. He served on the White House climate change policy teams under both President Clinton and President Bush. Keeler has also worked as a senior economist at the Environmental Protection Agency's Innovative Strategies and Economics Group (1999-2000) and for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization in Tanzania (1982-1985). He has served in advisory capacities to legislative and executive agencies in Georgia, Florida, and Ohio, and advised that National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners on climate change policy. Keeler received a B.A. in Economics from UNC-Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in Resource Economics from the University of California-Berkeley.

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