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  5. The Willingness to Pay for a Cooler Day: Evidence from 50 Years of Major League Baseball Games

American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics

ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)

The Willingness to Pay for a Cooler Day: Evidence from 50 Years of Major League Baseball Games

  • Kevin Kuruc
  • Melissa LoPalo
  • Sean O'Connor
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (Forthcoming)

Abstract

The climate-economy literature has documented adverse effects of extreme temperatures on wellbeing through mechanisms such as mortality, productivity, and conflict. Impacts due simply to discomfort are less well understood. This paper investigates individuals’ valuations of weather using a revealed preference approach. We first quantify the decline in attendance at Major League Baseball games on hot and cold days. Leveraging this finding coupled with the historically-informed assumption of a horizontal supply curve, we infer a monetized estimate of the disutility of extreme temperatures. We estimate a $1.53 utility loss per hour of exposure to high temperatures, implying non-trivial aggregate welfare effects.

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