Graduation Year

2021

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Reader 1

Nicholas Kacher

Reader 2

Roberto Pedace

Reader 3

N/A

Rights Information

2020 Eleanor M. Strotz

Abstract

In the last decade due to factors like climate change, wildfires in California have been more abundant each year. This leads to negative health effects from the pollutants produced by the fires and negative labor market effects in many industries. Many past papers and studies have found evidence of negative labor market effects on other industries but never concrete negative evidence on the agricultural industry. This is one of the first papers to analyze two sectors of the agricultural industry that produce the highest yield of crops in California and their labor market reactions depending on the amount of acres burned in each county and year. The two sectors are grape vineyards and tree nut firms. Multiple fixed panel regressions are used. The independent variable is the amount of acres burned and the employment level, establishment count, and wages are the interchanging dependent variables. The control variables that remain constant in the regressions are the employment level, population, and employment to population ratio for each county and year. It was found that in the face of wildfires both of these two industries react differently depending on the amount of acres burned. The tree nut industry experienced closures and wage cutting but not any shifts in the employment level while the grape vineyard sector experienced closures but no changes in the employment level or wages.

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