🌍 Research Project Guide — Climate Change and the Individual

Research Kickoff Report

Author

Affiliation

Byeong-Hak Choe

SUNY Geneseo

Published

October 22, 2025

🌍 Overview

This semester-long project explores the economics of climate change from the perspective of the individual.

Theme: Climate Change and the Individual
Your goal is to analyze how individuals perceive, respond to, or contribute to climate change — through the lens of economic reasoning.

You’ll complete the project in three-four stages:
1. 🧾 Research Kick-off Report — preliminary proposal (about 2 weeks from today)
2. 🗣️ Final Presentation — share insights during the last week of class
3. 📄 Final Proposal — polished written proposal due at the end of the semester
4. 📘 (Optional) Ideas that Matter Student Challenge — GREAT Day presentation/poster and/or research paper in Spring 2026

👥 Team Formation

Each project will be completed in teams of three students (approximately 9–10 teams in total).
This team size provides a strong balance between collaboration and accountability — allowing members to divide responsibilities across research design, data analysis, and writing.

One or two teams may have two or four members.
Every team member is expected to contribute actively and understand the entire project.
Teams should be formed by Monday, October 27, 11:59 P.M., and a representative must report the members to Prof. Choe at bchoe@geneseo.edu, cc-ing all team members.
- If any students are not assigned to a team by that deadline, Prof. Choe will assign them to teams with fewer than three members or create a new team as needed.

⏰ Project Timeline

Component	Description	Due Date
🧾 Research Kick-off Report	Preliminary proposal — define your question, motivation, and framework	Saturday, November 1, 2025
🗣️ Final Presentation	10–15 minute team presentation (Week of Dec 1)	Last week of class
📄 Final Proposal	Expanded 5–7 page final proposal paper	Tuesday, December 16, 2025

📘 Connecting Theory to Practice

So far, we have studied why environmental markets fail:

Externalities
Public goods and common-pool resources
Information problems and principal-agent problems
Behavioral anomalies

Now, we extend these ideas to the economics of climate change, where individual decisions aggregate into global consequences.

🧠 Key analytical tools we will further discuss include:

Dynamic efficiency and discounting — balancing present and future well-being
Risk and uncertainty — understanding behavior and policy decisions when information is imperfect or incomplete
Strategic interaction and game theory — analyzing incentives, cooperation, and negotiation in international environmental agreements (IEAs)

🧾 Research Kick-off Report — Structure

Your Research Kick-off Report (2–3 pages) is a concise proposal that outlines what you plan to study, why it matters economically, and how you might study it.

It should include the following sections:

Title & Connection to Theme
- Provide a clear, descriptive title.
- Explain how your topic fits within “Climate Change and the Individual.”
Research Question & Motivation
- State your central research question clearly.
- Explain why this question is economically meaningful or policy relevant.
- Highlight the underlying issue (e.g., externality, behavioral bias, or coordination problem).
Conceptual Framework
- Identify the key economic mechanism or theoretical idea behind your question.
- Specify whether it involves market failure, behavioral economics, or strategic interaction.
- Mention relevant analytical tools (e.g., dynamic efficiency, externalities, incentives, or risk).
Proposed Data or Methodology
- Describe how you would study your question — using surveys, experiments, secondary data, or conceptual analysis.
- Clarify what kind of evidence or reasoning you would use to support your claims.
Expected Insights or Policy Implications
- Summarize what findings or implications you anticipate.
- Discuss how your analysis might inform individual behavior, firm decisions, or public policy.
Reference
- Use a consistent citation format throughout.
- For online sources, include the URL and the date and time of access.

Note

💡 Think of this report as your research blueprint, not a finished proposal.
Your goal is to define a focused, economically grounded question and a feasible approach — not to produce results yet.

💡 Brainstorming Ideas

Theme	Example Research Question	Economic Concept	Policy Levers
Energy Behavior	Why do households underinvest in energy-efficient appliances?	Myopia / bounded rationality	💰 Incentives – Align financial signals with efficient choices
Transportation	How do zoning or parking policies shape individual transportation choices and emissions?	Institutions / externalities	🏛 Institutions – Reform parking minimums and zoning rules to reduce car dependency
Consumption	Do “low-carbon” labels affect purchasing choices?	Information asymmetry	🧠 Information – Make efficiency visible, comparable, and easy to act on
Insurance & Risk	How does climate risk perception affect home insurance demand?	Risk aversion / misperception	💰 Incentives – Price risk accurately through insurance and disclosure
Social Norms	Do peer effects influence willingness to offset emissions?	Externalities / social norms	🤝 Social Norms – Use peer effects and social signaling to shift behavior
Adaptation	How do individuals discount future flood or heat risks?	Time preference / discounting	🧠 Information + 💰 Incentives – Make future risks salient and reward long-term choices

Effective climate policy often combines multiple levers — for example, tax + label + social norm feedback — to align private and social incentives.

🧭 Research Idea Logic

Your project does not require advanced modeling or econometrics — but it must demonstrate economic reasoning and, ideally, use real-world data.

Think like an economist: focus on incentives, information, and trade-offs, and support your reasoning with evidence, even if it’s simple.

Type	Purpose	Example Question
Descriptive	Identify or illustrate a real-world pattern	“Who installs rooftop solar panels?”
Explanatory (Positive)	Explain why something happens using reasoning or basic evidence	“Why do some households adopt solar while others don’t?”
Conceptual / Mechanism-Based	Use an economic idea to describe how incentives or information shape behavior	“How could rebates or information programs increase solar adoption?”
Normative / Policy-Oriented	Explore what should happen to improve welfare or efficiency	“Should carbon rebates target renters or homeowners?”

💾 Using Data Effectively

You are encouraged to:

Look for public datasets related to your topic (energy use, weather, attitudes, emissions, adaptation behavior, etc.).
Use simple summaries — such as tables, graphs, or averages — to describe your findings.
- Formal regression analysis is optional, and recommended only if you feel comfortable and have the time to do it carefully.
- 💬 Ask Prof. Choe for help with any data work! Guidance is available for data search, cleaning, and visualization.
Combine qualitative insights (e.g., survey reports, interviews, case studies) with quantitative evidence when possible.
Always cite your data sources clearly — e.g., EPA, NOAA, World Bank, Our World in Data, U.S. Census, academic studies.

“You don’t need complex statistics to do good economics — but you do need data and reasoning to support your argument.”

🌐 Recommended Open Data Sources

Source	Description
🌍 Our World in Data	Cross-country datasets on CO₂ emissions, energy use, and climate impacts.
📊 Statista	Statistics portal covering energy, environment, and sustainability topics. (Access available through SUNY Geneseo library subscription.)
🌡 NOAA Climate Data Online	Temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather records for U.S. and global stations.
⚡ U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)	Data on energy production, consumption, and fuel prices.
🌾 FAOSTAT (UN Food and Agriculture Organization)	Global data on agriculture, food systems, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions by sector and country.
💰 World Bank Data Catalog	Global indicators for environment, economics, and public policy.
🌐 World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal	The hub for global, climate-related data on historical and future climate, vulnerabilities, and impacts.
🌦 PRISM Climate Group (Oregon State University)	High-resolution U.S. climate data (temperature, precipitation, and normals) for local and regional analysis.
🔋 IEA (International Energy Agency)	Global datasets on energy production, consumption, efficiency, and emissions by sector and country.
🌎 UNEP Environment Data Explorer	World Environment Situation Room (WESR), an open data platform by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
🧭 OECD Environment Statistics	Data on environmental performance, green growth, energy intensity, and environmental taxes for OECD countries.
🧮 Global Carbon Budget Office	Annual data on global carbon emissions and carbon budget analysis.
♻️ UN SDG Indicators Database	Official UN indicators tracking global sustainability goals.
🌐️ IMF Data	Official IMF Macroeconomic Climate Indicators.
💧 AQUASTAT (FAO Water Data)	Global data on water resources, irrigation, and agricultural water management.
🗺️ Yale Climate Opinion Map	American’s climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy support, and behaviors.
🌡️ Berkeley Earth	Long-term global datasets on temperature, air quality, and climate change.
🏠 U.S. Census Bureau - Natural & Built Environments	Datasets on the natural and built environment including: pollution, agriculture, transportation emissions, recycling, economic self-sufficiency, resources for refugees, rural economic development, and disaster spending.
🎓 Harvard Dataverse	Repository for academic datasets across disciplines, including environment and policy.
🧩 Open ICPSR	Open-access social science data archive with economic and behavioral studies.

✅ Checklist

Before submitting your Research Kick-off Report:

Topic fits the theme Climate Change and the Individual
Clear, well-defined research question
Economic mechanism or concept identified
Data source or method described
Expected insight or policy takeaway
2–3 pages, professional formatting
Submitted via Brightspace by Saturday, November 1, 2025 (11:59 PM)

🌱 Closing Thought

“Climate change is global — it demands coordinated, systemic change across the world.
Yet meaningful progress also begins with individual decisions.
Economics helps us understand how incentives and information connect the two — linking personal behavior with collective solutions.”