Publications

The public overestimates and prefers greater tolerance for grizzly bear encounters than defined by the United States management guidelines.

Published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, 2025

People are more tolerant of grizzly encounters than management rules, all, with significant local and regional variation. We use survey data and predictive mapping to document these misalignments between public preferences and federal risk standards.

Recommended citation: Hubbard, C. Fletcher, I.M., Cherry, T.L. et al. The public overestimates and prefers greater tolerance for grizzly bear encounters than defined by the United States management guidelines. Commun Earth Environ 6, 1022 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02969-9
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Heterogeneous Risks and the Intangibility of Risk Reduction: Theory and Experimental Evidence

The paper investigates how making disaster outcomes more tangible—by revealing whether losses were preventable—affects individual investment in risk mitigation. Using a theoretical model and a 2×2 lab experiment, it shows that when people can attribute outcomes to their own actions, they invest more in prevention after both success and failure, highlighting that causal feedback and observability are key to sustaining preventive behavior.

The Curse of Intangibility: Why Prevention Policies Fail

Prevention policies systematically fail because their greatest successes are invisible: avoided disasters, prevented diseases, and non-events that cannot be attributed to the policies that caused them. This paper argues that this “intangibility” problem is distinct from other behavioral biases and requires institutional reforms that reward policymakers for outcomes no one can see.

From Survival to Learning: The Evolution of Early Childhood Investment Over the Development Cycle

The paper develops an economic model explaining how countries shift early childhood development investments from health to education as they grow richer and survival improves. Using global data, it finds that nations first focus on survival-related spending, then sharply increase education investment with rising income and health quality—highlighting the importance of sequencing and tailoring ECD policies to development stage rather than adopting uniform strategies.

Natural Disasters and the Intangibility of Risk Reduction: Theory and Experimental Evidence

The paper investigates how making disaster outcomes more tangible—by revealing whether losses were preventable—affects collective investment in risk mitigation. Using a theoretical model and a 2×2 lab experiment, it shows that when people can attribute outcomes to their own actions, they invest more in prevention after both success and failure, highlighting that causal feedback and observability are key to sustaining preventive behavior.

Non-autonomous Management of Jackson Lake Dam Releases in Response to Climate Change

This paper models the dynamic optimization problem faced by dam managers balancing upstream recreation and downstream flows in a non-autonomous, seasonal environment. Using Jackson Lake as a case study, it compares actual versus optimal management, quantifies the impact of hydrological shocks, and offers a decision-support framework for adapting to future climate and political pressures.

Experiencing Carbon Pricing

Experience with Washington’s cap-and-invest program transformed initial opposition to carbon pricing into broader support for the policy. Voter data and survey evidence show that firsthand experience, rather than ideology, drove this shift—boosting approval specifically for the policy voters lived under.