Ben Keys

Incredibly random, but do I know anyone who can put me in touch with Del The Funky Homosapien?

Just trying to understand these two news items published within 5 days of each other

"Western civilization," the font, the 11 stars - 11 states in the confederacy, for the record.

Why is this never news? Why are we letting our government agencies do this sort of thing while the news agencies report on hallucinated trade deals and act like everything is normal

With a win over the Eagles, the Bears move to 9-3 on the season.

That matches their best start since 2010 🤯

It's Thanksgiving and I'm feeling generous so here's Busta Rhymes and the TMNT

"We show that rising insurance premiums, driven by changing reinsurance prices that reflect increasing catastrophic risk, are being capitalized into house prices, and may further reduce demand for properties exposed to increasing disaster risk."

Dragons Love Tacos

A very happy Taco Party for Dragons at Robbie’s House to all who celebrate!

Increases in average annual premiums in seven key states.

"Climate shock." New study shows that rising property insurance premiums caused by growing weather extremes are cascading into the real estate market. Homes in the ZIP codes most exposed to hurricanes and wildfires would sell for an average of $43,900 less than they would otherwise.

Home Prices on a Warming Planet

Home Prices on a Warming Planet

"chaos in the insurance market is starting to eat into the real estate market in some places, a scenario that experts have dreaded for years"...

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/c...

A member of Congress just filled out a threat report with the Capitol Police naming the President of the United States as the person making the threat.

Think of where we were on January 7, 2021 when the country overwhelmingly repudiated what had happened.

And think of where we are now.

Call for Graduate Student Fellowship Applicants: The NBER is accepting applications for 15 dissertation-writer fellowships on various topics for the 2026-27 academic year. Deadlines are Jan. 4-8, 2026. Further information: www.nber.org/career-resou...

NYT: “.. high insurance costs are cascading into the broader real estate market, suppressing home values by an average of $44,000 in the top 10 percent of U.S. ZIP codes most vulnerable to hurricanes and wildfires ..”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

We document rapidly rising premiums & a doubling of the pass-through from disaster risk into premiums. Using variation in correlated wildfire and hurricane exposure, we show that the increase in the risk-to-premium gradient was accelerated by a repricing of catastrophic risk in global capital market

Keys & Mulder build dataset to study homeowners insurance using over 74 million premiums from 2014–2024 inferred from mortgage escrow payments. Premium increases are capitalized into home values, reducing home price growth by over $40,000 in the most exposed zip codes. www.nber.org/papers/w32579

We're most excited to have our data out in the world to help inform policymakers and other researchers!

Some of the biggest reinsurers and investors are starting to reprice catastrophic wildfire and hurricane risk. In the highest risk areas with the fastest premium increases, we estimate that rising premiums have slowed home price growth by more than 10%.

Inflation-adjusted premiums have increased by over 25% since 2020, driven by rising property costs but also rapid increases in zipcodes with the highest disaster risk.

The main findings:
We estimate annual homeowners insurance premiums from 2014-2024 measured from over 70 million mortgage escrow payments. You can download our county-level and state-level data here:

benkeys.github.io/insurance_da...

Rising Home Insurance Premiums Are Eating Into Home Values in Disaster-Prone Areas (Gift Article) Changes in the insurance market have started to affect home prices in the most disaster-prone areas, new research finds, pushing some homeowners’ finances to the breaking point.

The New York Times has a piece covering some of our new findings with great data visualizations and reporting that add more context to what we're seeing in the homeowners insurance market:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Property Insurance and Disaster Risk: New Evidence from Mortgage Escrow Data Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

Philip Mulder and I are excited to share a major update to our working paper, "Property Insurance and Disaster Risk: New Evidence from Mortgage Escrow Data," with NYT coverage and making our data publicly available!

www.nber.org/papers/w32579
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Rising Home Insurance Premiums Are Eating Into Home Values in Disaster-Prone Areas (Gift Article) Changes in the insurance market have started to affect home prices in the most disaster-prone areas, new research finds, pushing some homeowners’ finances to the breaking point.

See my commentary in @nytimes.com in re climatic & non-climatic factors pushing down home prices (always excellent work of @benkeys.bsky.social & P. Mulder) Amazing to see how far prices have tanked in Nola. Good News: homes w/ Fortified Roofs are holding their value. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Senator Menendez is sitting in his cell at Allenwood right now because he took a 1kg gold bar from the Egyptians, among other forms of “lobbying.”

My group at the University of Illinois is hiring a tenure-track applied economist.

We're especially interested in environmental/public reduced-form rookies with research that complements our group.

Tell your students to apply! #EconSky

www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing....

I hope future generations recognize how quickly and strangely the contours of what counts as a political scandal changed for this president.

A pardon "following months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company." Unprecedented corruption.

U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters | Climate Central Explore U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters since 1980, including total costs, trends, and impacts.

Today, the U.S. faces one billion+ dollar climate/weather disaster on average every 2w. That's a massive increase from one every 4m in the 1980s.

This is 'global weirding' and people are taking notice!

The government told NOAA to stop tracking these events: but @climatecentral.org is on the job.

Impunity for his allies even as he forces prosecutions of his enemies (Comey, James, soon possibly Schmitt and more) and prepares to deploy the IRS against groups that oppose him

this white house actively treats a large swath of americans as disloyal and outside the political community and it doesn’t merit so much as a peep from the political press

Wharton’s real estate department is hiring pre-docs!

Please send your amazing undergrads our way and reach out with any questions! #Econsky

Before Alaska Flooding, E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant

Before catastrophic floods swept through the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk on Sunday, the EPA canceled a $20 million grant intended to protect the community from extreme flooding. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/c...