Paul Hudson
Programme Leader: MSc Environmental Economics & Environmental Management (EEEM)

Profile

Biography

Paul is an Environmental Economist who works in a very interdisciplinary manner. He has studied in the UK (University of Manchester), Belgium (Université catholique de Louvain) and the Netherlands (Tilburg university) studying economics at various levels. He completed his PhD research at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam with a thesis entitled “The use of insurance to improve flood resilience”, before moving to the University of Potsdam (Germany) as a post-doctoral researcher before joining the University of York as a Lecturer in Environmental Economics in September 2021. Where I am also the programme leader for our MSc Environmental Economics and Environmental Management (EEEM) programme.

I am very interested in using environmental economics as a basis for work on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management, with a focus on flooding. This is because disasters are a complex problem that need to be managed and addressed from multiple perspectives and understandings to be able correctly help society weather the negative impacts that they present. A problem that is only going to worsen because of Climate Change, the way people approach complex problems, and the consequences of economic development.

ORCID Research

Research

Overview

My research is focused upon the joint problems of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management. This has involved a great deal of interdisciplinary research. My focus is on flooding, but much of my research can be applied to a wide range of different types of disasters as well. This has rendered me as a generalist across many spheres within disaster risk management. The main topics that I conduct research on are as follows:

• The use of insurance as way of helping people to become more resilient against disaster events. Both at the level of an individual as well as for governments and how to create and structure markets.
• The economic and psychological motivations behind peoples’ actions to protect their homes and themselves before, during, and after disaster events. This also applies to how companies act and protect themselves as well. As well as trying to understand the effectiveness of the measures that we can take to limit the impacts of disasters.
• How the impacts of a disaster manifest as intangible consequences (e.g., wellbeing impacts, health impacts, how people subjectively recover) to develop a wider understanding of a disaster’s impacts rather than just the financial impact.
• Nature-based solutions against climate and disaster impacts, as a way of empowering communities and addressing existing inequalities. This increasingly involves a spatial/urban planning perspective.
• The social justice implications regarding the how and who of we expect people to act against climate change and disasters.

I am happy to consider PhD and Master thesis students across all of these areas.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Economic Principles (Convener)
• Environmental and Natural Resource Economics (Convener in collaboration with Julia Touza)
• Sustainability Frontiers (Contributor)
• Qualitative Approaches to Social Science Research (Contributor)

Postgraduate

• Current Research in Environment, Economics and Ecology (Contributor)