Qing Miao

I study environmental economics and policy with a particular focus on climate change adaptation, natural disaster policy, and risk analysis. My other research areas include public finance, science and technology policy.

1. How Do You Teach Applied Critical Thinking in the Context of Disaster?

While I do not teach critical thinking specifically, I try to have my students think about how to evaluate public policies in a critical way. More specifically, when they say this policy is good or bad, they need to be very clear about the implicit criteria and evidence they use. One example I often use in my class is about government disaster relief aid. Most students tend to believe that government should provide relief aid to those who are adversely affected by natural disasters. However, they are less concerned about the re-distributional implications of disaster relief and the potential moral hazard problem it may cause (for instance, when people receive generous disaster aid from the government, they are less likely to engage in risk-mitigating actions and would expect government bailout during future disaster events). As for teaching public policy, I believe one important aspect of critical thinking is to think about the possible unintended consequences in evaluating policies. 

2. Why Do You Think Applied Critical Thinking is Important in Your Domain?

When teaching public policy, one thing I often emphasize to my students is that government introduces public policies to address various problems in a society. Therefore, policy-making is indeed a problem-solving process which requires rationality, scientific analysis, and critical thinking. Important policy decisions should be made based on evidence and that is why policy researchers can play a critical role in informing policymaking by using empirical data to study social behaviors.

3. Can You Share a Story Where Quality Applied Critical Thinking Was Key to Your Success?

One example relates to the disaster aid policy I noted earlier. In a recent published paper, my co-authors and I show that counties that receive more federal disaster aid following a major flood tend to have lower flood insurance take-up rates (in other words, fewer households would purchase flood insurance when they know their local government gets more funding from the federal government). This finding suggests the normal hazard problem as an unintended consequence of post-disaster relief aid.

4. How Do I Use Critical Thinking in Other Areas of Your Life Outside of RIT?

I cannot think of an example for now. 

5. Any Last Critical Thoughts You Wish to Share About What We Are Experiencing Now or What You Have Learned in Past Work?

I believe that the current COVID-19 pandemic would definitely provide lots of opportunities for critical thinking, as many people are already quite critical of what their government are doing during this global crisis. But just like natural disasters, this pandemic would also provide a window of opportunities for policy changes and institutional reforms.