University of California, Riverside

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

The School of Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside, invites applications for a USDA-NIFA-funded postdoc position in the general area of water economics and climate change. The research will focus on California's agricultural sector adaptation to climate change-induced water scarcity under the leadership of Dr. Ariel Dinar and Dr. Mehdi Nemati. The overall objective of this project is to improve the understanding of how multi-level adaptation interventions operate in parallel over time and space so as to enhance the resiliency of the irrigated agricultural sector of California. To achieve this goal, we focus on two objectives: (1) Examine how different groups of farmers are adapting to changes in their economic environment through on-farm, public, and political adaptations. And (2) Evaluate how public adaptation explains interactions between farmers' private investment in on-farm adaptation, their political action, and legislative responsiveness under a changing climate. We apply the Ricardian framework, using data from 58 California counties over time to empirically quantify the impact of each of the mentioned three adaptation options available to farmers on the ability of the irrigated agricultural sector in California to reduce the negative effects of climate change.

Start date: ASAP.

Required Qualifications
• Ph.D. in agricultural economics, applied economics, or economics;
• Experience working with geospatial data to produce datasets suitable as input to econometric models;
• Strong programming skills in Stata, R, and GIS;
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills.

Desired Qualifications
• Familiarity with California water policy;
• Familiarity with the economics of climate change impacts on the agricultural sector;
• Experience with the application of the Ricardian Approach;
• Experience using Stata, R, and/or Python software for data processing and analysis and GIS software for geospatial data processing;
• Published work in a related field.

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.