Abstract Are violent conflict and socio-political stability associated with changes in climatological variables? We examine 50 rigorous quantitative studies on this question and find consistent support for a causal association between climatological changes and various conflict outcomes, at spatial scales ranging from individual buildings to the entire globe and at temporal scales ranging from an anomalous hour to an anomalous millennium.Multiplemechanisms that could explain this association have been proposed and are sometimes supported by findings, but the literature is currently unable to decisively exclude any proposed pathway. Several mechanisms likely contribute to the outcomes that we observe.

In The Modern Prison Paradox, Amy E. Lerman examines the shift from rehabilitation to punitivism that has taken place in the politics and practice of American corrections. She argues that this punitive turn has had profoundly negative consequences for both crime control and American community life. Professor Lerman's research shows that spending time in America's increasingly violent and castigatory prisons strengthens inmates' criminal networks and fosters attitudes that increase the likelihood of criminal activity following parole. Additionally, Professor Lerman assesses whether America's more punitive prisons similarly shape the social attitudes and behaviors of correctional staff. Her analysis reveals that working in more punitive prisons causes correctional officers to develop an “us against them” mentality while on the job, and that the stress and wariness officers acquire at work carries over into their personal lives, straining relationships with partners, children, and friends.

To reach its 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goal, California electricity must become cleaner and some activities that are now fossil-­‐fueled must run partially or fully on the cleaner electricity—a process termed electrification.  This paper recommends pricing policy reforms that will help to make decarbonization and electrification decisions effectively and efficiently. Its emphasis is on better alignment of prices with social costs. But participation of many other jurisdictions besides California is also necessary for mitigating climate change efficiently.  Therefore California policymakers should look favorably upon linkage of its cap-­‐and-­‐trade program with jurisdictions like Quebec that adopt comparable goals and rules.  Policymakers should also act soon to clarify state efforts to reduce GHG emissions beyond the 2020 mandate of AB 32—otherwise, the uncertainty lowers expected future allowance prices and deters investments and research and development efforts for cleaner generation, factories, buildings, and other infrastructure. Substantial  reform  is also needed  with the retail  pricing  of electricity. Restrictions  held over from  the  state’s  2001  electricity  crisis  are  preventing  10  million California  residences  from receiving any carbon price signal at all, despite the fact that they would be compensated for this price increase with dividends. California also needs to transition its electricity customers on to time-­‐varying  rates that reflect the large social cost differences of providing service at different times of the day. The prevailing time-­‐invariant system is an inefficient impediment to vehicle electrification—while it only costs about $.05 per kWh to provide offpeak electricity when recharging is convenient, many customers face rates that are more than 6 times this cost. The same  misalignment  of  rates  with  costs  is  also hindering  the  development  of  grid  storage important to manage increased use of intermittent renewable generation. It is hindering participation  in demand  response  programs  that  avoid inefficient,  high-­‐emission peak generation,  facilitate increased renewable generation,  and can be used to provide better and cleaner ancillary  services.  Time-­‐varying  prices commensurate with costs of service would not only fix these  issues,  but they would  encourage  the development of enabling  technology  to further  improve  all  of these  GHG-­‐reducing  actions.  Important fairness  concerns  about  time-­‐ varying rates can be addressed by several rate design methods, including HOOP (Household On and  Off  Peak)  pricing  that  combines  time-­‐varying 
marginal-­‐cost  based  volumetric  rates  with  a system of non-­‐distorting graduated fees.

There is a long history of using weather measures as explanatory variables in statistical models. For example, Fisher (1925) examined the effects of rainfall on wheat yields, andWright (1928) used weather as an instrumental variable to identify a demand function for oils. Because weather is exogenous and random in most economic applications, it acts like a “natural experiment” and thus in some settings allows researchers to identify statistically the causal effect of one variable on an economic outcome of interest (Angrist and Krueger 2001). The relatively recent literature on the economic impacts of climate change has turned the spotlight onto quantifying the effect of climate on a number of economic outcomes of interest (e.g., agricultural yields, mortality rates, electricity and water demand). This literature has often found a nonlinear relationship between climate and these outcomes, with extremely warm temperatures being especially important (e.g., Schlenker and Roberts 2009). Climate is a long average of weather at a given location. To identify the causal effect of climate on these outcomes, the literature has generally relied on either climate normals (i.e., long averages of observed weather in a cross-sectional setting) or day-to-day (or year-to-year) fluctuations in observed weather as explanatory variables across time and space. The econometrician’s
choice of a weather versus a climate measure as an explanatory variable critically affects the interpretation of the estimated coefficients in the econometric model: that is, whether the outcome is a true climate response or a short-run weather elasticity.

The Indian central government has promoted efforts to improve the quality of public service delivery using information and communication technologies. However, state-level experiences with eGovernment since the late 1990s display significant variations in the ability of governments to successfully adopt new technologies to provide benefits to citizens. I evaluate state efforts to implement one-stop, computerized citizen service centers and show that policy outcomes are not correlated with measures of established explanations for reform, such as economic development. Instead, I argue that variations in policies result from the extent to which incumbent politicians expect reforms to affect the economic resources underlying their current and future electoral status—in particular, the availability of corrupt income from the process of service delivery. I show that levels of petty corruption are highly correlated with the characteristics of reform and these outcomes are magnified in coalition-led states, where politicians anticipate economic benefits from their participation in government. Analysis of four states, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Uttar Pradesh, illustrates these dynamics and highlights the ways in which politicians simultaneously use service reforms to target benefits to their preferred constituents.

Analysts often examine the black-white test score gap conditional on current family income. We describe a method for identifying the gap conditional on the family’s permanent income. Current income explains only about half as much of the black-white test gap as does permanent income, and the gap among families with the same permanent income is only 0.2 to 0.3 standard deviations in two commonly used samples. When we add permanent income to the controls used by Fryer and Levitt (2006), the unexplained gap in third grade shrinks below 0.15 SDs, less than half of what is found with their controls.

Energy is important to the Southwest United States, where 12.7% of the nation’s energy is produced (extracted or generated) and 12.1% is consumed. The region is in the favorable position of having low per-capita energy consumption (222 million BTUs per person) relative to that of the nation as a whole (302 million BTUs per person); nevertheless, disruption of power has significant economic implications for the region (e.g., LaCommare and Eto 2004; Northwest Power and Conservation Council 2005). Climate change itself, as well as strategies aimed at mitigation and adaptation have the potential to impact the production, demand, and delivery of energy in a number of ways. 

• Delivery of electricity may become more vulnerable to disruption due to climateinduced extreme heat and drought events as a result of:
     − increased demand for home and commercial cooling,
     − reduced thermal power plant efficiencies due to high temperatures,
     − reduced transmission line, substation, and transformer capacities due to elevated temperatures,
     − potential loss of hydropower production,
     − threatened thermoelectric generation due to limited water supply, and
     − the threat of wildfire to transmission infrastructure.

(medium-high confidence)

• Climate-related policies have the potential to significantly alter the energy sector. A shift from the traditional fossil fuel economy to one rich in renewables has significant implications for related water use, land use, air quality, national security, and the economy. The vulnerability of the energy system in the Southwest to climate change depends on how the energy system evolves over this century.

(medium-high confidence)