IoES/Luskin Research Seminar: Miriam Golden

“Climate Change, Public Health andViolence in Arctic Canada”Exploiting the differential impact of climate change on the
25 Inuit villages in the territory of Nunavut, Canada whose location spans a
north-south distance of 3,000 kilometers allows a natural experiment of
the effects of changes in the ice melt on human communities. Using data from
quarterly police incident reports from 2005 to 2009 in conjunction with 30
years of passive microwave data available from the National Snow and Ice Data
Center, we study whether public disturbances and serious crime increase in the
spring quarter where the impact of climate change has been more severe. Results
are consistent with the hypothesis that where climate change has had the
greatest effect in reducing sea ice concentration, spring quarter rates of
public disturbances and violent activities are relatively higher. We interpret
this to show that when Inuit men are not able to travel reliably on the ice to
hunt, the public health of their communities deteriorates.   About the speaker:Miriam Golden is the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. At the undergraduate level she teaches PS167D, “Political Institutions and Economic Development,” and at the graduate level she teaches seminars on distributive politics and on inequality as well as politics. She recently served as Chair of the American Political Science Association’s Organized Section in Political Economy and is a member of the editorial boards of various U.S. and European professional journals. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the International Growth Centre, and the Governments of Quebec and Canada. Professor Golden was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University for the 2011-2012 academic year.