Reading Guides

These guides are short summaries of the backbone papers from the second half of the course. They are written for students who have had intermediate microeconomics but only limited econometrics. The goal is not to replace the papers. The goal is to help you read them with a clear sense of the question, the strategy, the main result, and why the paper matters for class.

I focus on the core research papers from Lecture 11 onward and skip the podcast, web primers, and short background pieces. Each guide is intentionally short enough to be read before class.

Lecture 11: Climate risk and financial instruments

Lecture 12: The environment and real estate markets

Lecture 15: Offset markets

Lecture 17: Green instruments

Baker, Bergstresser, Serafeim, and Wurgler (2018): U.S. Green Bonds

A reading guide to the paper on the pricing and ownership of U.S. green bonds.

Bernstein, Gustafson, and Lewis (2019): Disaster on the Horizon

A reading guide to the paper on sea level rise and current housing prices.

Calel, Colmer, Dechezleprêtre, and Glachant (2021): Do Carbon Offsets Offset Carbon?

A reading guide to the paper on whether carbon offsets under the CDM generated real extra emissions reductions.

Flammer (2020): Green Bonds

A reading guide to the paper on whether green bonds improve firms' environmental performance.

Giglio, Maggiori, and Stroebel (2015): Very Long-Run Discount Rates

A reading guide to the paper on how housing markets reveal discount rates far into the future.

Greenstone and Gallagher (2008): Does Hazardous Waste Matter?

A reading guide to the paper on Superfund cleanups and housing markets.

Painter (2020): An Inconvenient Cost

A reading guide to the paper on climate risk and municipal borrowing costs.

Schlenker and Taylor (2021): Market Expectations of a Warming Climate

A reading guide to the paper on what weather derivatives reveal about expected climate change.