Andrew Hobbs

Andrew Hobbs studies how droughts, floods, and other disasters affect people, and develops tools to reduce the impact of climate change on farmers. He focuses in particular on how the costs of climate shocks are distributed within households. He is currently working on combining machine learning and satellite data for faster and more accurate detection of disasters and on insurance to sustain women's businesses through droughts in Northern Kenya.

Before entering academia, Andrew studied climate change mitigation and adaptation policy at Climate Policy Initiative in San Francisco and Mozambique.

• Development economics
• Environmental economics
• Climate economics

• UC Davis, PhD in Agricultural & Resource Economics, 2020
• University of British Columbia, MA in Economics, 2010
• University of Utah, BS/BA in Economics/International Studies, 2009

• "Gender and Culture Shape Prosociality More than Heat Stress in a Five-Country Experiment”. Forthcoming at PNAS Nexus. with Alessandra Cassar, Jesse Anttila-Hughes, Francesco Bogliacino, Travis Lybbert, Irvin Rojas, Kelvin Mashisia Shikuku, John Chetwynd, Jake Cosgrove, Alexander Courtman, Andrew Hall, Stephanie Hermoso, Scott Klaus, Antonia Sottile, Nikita Tkachenko, and Bruce Wydick.

• "Insuring those who bear the risk: The impact of gender-inclusive framing on insurance uptake in Kenya” (2026). World Development 201, 107330. with Julian Arteaga and Michael R Carter.

• "Get in the Zone: The Risk-Adjusted Welfare Effects of Data-Driven vs. Administrative Borders for Index Insurance Zones” (2025). Journal of Development Economics. with Ella Kirchner, Elinor Benami, Michael Carter, and Zhenong Jin.

• "Uniting remote sensing, crop modelling and economics for agricultural risk management” (2021). Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. with Elinor Benami, Zhenong Jin, Michael R. Carter, Aniruddha Ghosh, Benson Kenduiywo, and David B. Lobell.