In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Isaac Opper, an economist at the Rand Corporation and professor at the Pardee Rand Graduate School, about how natural disasters can affect education outcomes for students and the resulting stock of skills in the US labor force. Opper discusses the relationship between education and skills in the US labor force, which is known as human capital; how natural disasters can disrupt education for students; and how school administrators and policymakers could mitigate learning losses that result from natural disasters.

References and recommendations:

“The effect of natural disasters on human capital in the United States” by Isaac M. Opper, R. Jisung Park, and Lucas Husted; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01610-z

“The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World” by Andrea Wulf; https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9780345806291