Noreen Clancy is a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. She has two primary areas of research: resilience from natural disasters and issues facing the financial services sector. Her natural disaster work includes issues related to flooding and flood insurance and the equitable distribution of pre- and post-disaster funding. Most recently, she has studied post disaster events and the right balance of risk sharing across federal, state and local governments. She has also explored the extent to which the public sector can transfer some of that risk to the private sector in the form of insurance or other financial instruments such as catastrophe bonds. In her current work, she is helping FEMA think about how best to incorporate issues of risk and equity into its mitigation grant program for communities (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities). In her past work she contributed to the long-term recovery plan for Puerto Rico, specifically addressing housing recovery efforts. After Hurricane Sandy, she assessed the risks of flooding in New York City, the implications of an expanded flood map, and the rising cost of flood insurance, and developed policy options for providing assistance to homeowners who will have trouble affording the higher premiums. She was also co-PI of a grant in the Gulf of Mexico examining the community resilience attributes of areas heavily impacted by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Regarding financial services, her two prime interests relate to the legal and regulatory challenges posed by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies and issues dubbed Green Swans. Green Swans are climate related risks (physical and transition risks) that have the potential to be extremely financially disruptive. Her earlier financial services research included co-authoring a study of hedge funds and systemic risk, examining the regulatory structure of Broker Dealers and Investment Advisors for the SEC and evaluating how assets are valued (historical cost vs. mark-to-market accounting) and whether that led to risk accumulation problems or market distortion during the financial crisis.
Prior to joining RAND, Clancy worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. She holds an M.S. in environmental science and policy from Johns Hopkins University.
