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Sustainability assessment is increasingly important due to concerns over increasing carbon damages and declining natural capital stocks. However, regional assessment is difficult due to lack of data and measurement, as well as theoretical issues due to how people and resources flow across space. The Inclusive Wealth (IW) framework offers a comprehensive approach to measuring the components of regional social welfare as the aggregate value of all capital assets in the region, and non-declining social welfare proxied by non-declining IW is defined as weak sustainability. In my three essays, I expand on the IW literature by creating novel regional estimates using the ideas of spatial equilibrium to estimate human capital, include population change within IW, and explain the spatial inequality of IW. Chapter 1 lays the groundwork for subsequent chapters by generating new regional measurements of human and health human capital by separating out the effect of health on productivity and increased well-being. I account for the inter-relationship between education and health, control for local amenities and sorting, and account for the impact of ecosystem services and social capital on health quality. I find that 47\% of counties are declining in total human capital from 2010-2017, the primary component of these declines is declining health quality which gets capitalized into productivity. These results emphasize urban-rural differences in human capital investment because a similar proportion of urban and rural counties are declining in health quality, but urban counties are able to compensate with increases in education to offset declines in health quality for productivity. Chapter 2 builds on Chapter 1 and creates an expanded IW regional framework which accounts for endogenous population and the interdependence of population and capital stock flows. I then empirically implement this approach to estimate the impact of exogenous population growth through agglomeration and congestion effects. I use the approach to estimating human and health capital developed in Chapter 1 to calculate the first regional IW index at the county level for the US between 2010-2017. I calculate spatially varying shadow values to capture the spatial differences of productivity, quality, accessibility, and supply and demand of resources for 19 capital stocks. I find that 42\% of counties are declining in IW over this time period, primarily due to declines in health quality and productivity. Collectively, these results emphasize the importance of regional sustainability assessment because using the downscaled national measurements show that only 5.1\% of counties are declining in IW over this time period. However, these regional measurements highlight that differences in regional capital stock investments lead to large welfare disparities across space, particularly due to ecosystem service and health quality inequities where 53\% of rural compared to 28\% of urban counties are declining in IW. Chapter 3 uses this new data to expand on the regional skill-based wage gap and optimal city size literature. To explain the occurrence of increased IW inequality over time and college population responsiveness to IW investments, I estimate a structural spatial equilibrium model which accounts for the positive reinforcing feedbacks between skill based sorting, preferences, and investments in capital stocks due to changing skill mix of a city. The parameters from the structural model are used to estimate the maximum sustainable city size such that simulated IW is non-declining over time based on the trade-offs of each capital stock due to changing city skill mix and population. I find this inequality is driven by a feedback loop where high-skilled workers prefer ecosystem service natural capital and health capital more than low-skill workers and investment in these capital stocks responds positively to high-skill worker population in the city. Using Columbus, OH as an example in the simulation exercise, I find that given a future economic shock from the creation of an Intel plant, the city can nearly double their low-skill population before IW begins to decline. Overall, I contribute to the ongoing interdisciplinary discourse on IW, providing valuable insights into regional income accounting and its implications for policy formulation and planning. By considering the nuances of population flows, capital stocks, and regional disparities, policymakers can work towards fostering sustainable and inclusive development that enhances the well-being of all communities.

Rent burden has become a widespread problem for many tenants in the twenty-first century America. In this dissertation, I situate this important issue within human geography. The first article reviews a prodigious amount of scholarship at the nexus of rentership, rental affordability, and rent burden. I highlight the most prominent themes in these scholarships and reveal previously unidentified lacunae that are fulfilled in this article and are offered as possible directions for future research. Stemming from some identified gaps—lack of intra-urban research on rent burden and no consideration of regional economic specializations—the second article tests whether rent burden is explained by the same phenomena in hot and cold housing markets. To do so, I select Nashville and Memphis to conduct an intra-urban analysis using cartographic and spatial regression methodologies. I find that rent burden is a very significant issue in Memphis’ cold housing market and that rent burden in Nashville is poorly explained by socioeconomic status, thus alluding to some differences in regional economic specializations and the overall health of the economy. These findings suggest examining rent burden at the metropolitan level in the conterminous U.S., since rent burden is not an exclusive issue of hot housing markets. With this intent, in the third article I develop a typology of U.S. metropolitan areas focusing on their rent burden and its drivers. This typology has seven types and I examine their spatial patterns and detailed profiles to understand variations of rent burden across different types. In the fourth article, I estimate numerous specifications of regression models to uncover relationships between my original rent burden index and various characteristics including regional economic specializations. I then test the same relationships using three size groupings of metropolitan areas to analyze size-specific phenomena that associate with rent burden. I provide evidence that manufacturing is a strong predictor of lower rent burden in most models, that is, higher rent burden is found in metropolises not specializing in manufacturing. At the same time, metropolises specializing in education, medicine, arts, entertainment, and recreation exhibit higher rent burden and most of them are mid- and small-sized.

This dissertation is comprised of two essays that delve into the construction of a major-related labor market and its correlation with college graduates’ job match quality. Investigating the job match quality of college graduates for different majors in large cities is crucial, as it provides evidence on which majors tend to yield better job matches. This contributes to the study of the return on major while also shedding light on how city size impacts individuals’ ability to find jobs that align with their educational level and major, thereby enriching the study of the benefits of agglomeration. The first chapter examines whether college graduates work in occupations that match their educational level and the skills acquired through their majors, subsequently assessing the correlation between labor market size and job match outcomes. Although previous theoretical literature posits that larger cities lead to better job matching outcomes, empirical evidence regarding this relationship remains inconclusive. This paper proposes a novel measure of labor market size specific to each college major and investigates its impact on job match quality. The results suggest that the size of a major-specific labor market is a predictor of improved job match quality. However, the size of the overall labor market demonstrates an inconsistent effect on job match quality. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the impact of major-specific labor market size is more pronounced for male and younger workers. In chapter two, the focus shifts to the correlation between major-specific labor mar- kets and job match quality for married power couples. Power couples, defined as highly educated, dual-career spouses, have been documented to reside predominantly in large cities. However, literature providing direct evidence supporting the notion that college-educated women experience greater career success by living in larger urban areas remains scarce. Building upon the ideas and results from the first chapter, this section examines whether power couples’ job match quality benefits from residing in large urban areas, as defined by various criteria. The findings suggest that both husbands and wives in power couples are more likely to work in occupations that match their educational level and acquired abilities in larger major-related labor markets. Interestingly, the correlation between population and job match outcomes for power couples proves inconsistent across different models, which is in line with the individual-level results presented in the first chapter.

The first chapter examines the connection between gentrification and urban violence. I demonstrate a positive and plausibly causal relationship between urban redevelopment and gun violence in Philadelphia. As the underlying mechanism, I focus on gentrification's displacement effect on local drug markets. Treating the city as a spatial network of city blocks and using two-way fixed effects differences-in-differences estimators, I show the gentrification of one block increases violence across the surrounding neighborhood. I find that some 2,400 (8%) of Philadelphia's shootings between the years 2011 and 2020 can be attributed to spillover effects from the gentrification of drug blocks. This effect is nearly ten times stronger than that observed on blocks without high levels of drug crime. This study also contributes a new empirical measurement of gentrification drawn primarily from property sales, along with building, zoning, and alteration permit issuance and utilizes a novel nearest-neighbor network approach to identify spatial spillover effects. The second chapter formalizes the synthetic difference-in-differences estimator for staggered treatment adoption settings, as briefly described in Arkhangelsky et al. (2021). To illustrate the importance of this estimator, I use replication data from Abrams (2012). I compare the estimators obtained using SynthDiD, TWFE, the group time average treatment effect estimator of Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021), and the partially pooled synthetic control method estimator of Ben-Michael et al. (2021) in a staggered treatment adoption setting. I find that in this staggered treatment setting, SynthDiD provides a numerically different estimate of the average treatment effect. Simulation results show that these differences may be attributable to the underlying data generating process more closely mirroring that of the latent factor model assumed for SynthDiD than that of additive fixed effects assumed under traditional difference-in-differences frameworks. The third chapter is joint work with Dr. Bryan McCannon. In it, we exploit a novel data set of criminal trials in 19th century London to evaluate the impact of an accused’s right to counsel on convictions. While lower-level crimes had an established history of professional representation prior to 1836, individuals accused of committing a felony did not, even though the prosecution was conducted by professional attorneys. The Prisoners’ Counsel At of 1836 remedied this imbalance and first introduced the right to counsel in common law systems. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy we identify the causal effect of defense counsel. We find the surprising result that the professionalization of the courtroom led to an increase in the conviction rate, which we interpret as a consequence of jurors perceiving the trial as being fairer. We go further and employ a topic modeling approach to the text of the transcripts to provide suggestive evidence on how the trials changed when defense counsel was fully introduced.

My dissertation analyzes several contemporary policy-based and institutional occurrences in an urban setting to help guide further advancements in reducing violence, drug overdose deaths, and other unhealthy behaviors that city governments look to curb. Several recent developments in Philadelphia offer a promising setting for studying policies that have broad implications. Chapter 1 examines the effect of the West Philadelphia Promise Zone initiative on violent crime rates in a high-crime area of West Philadelphia, where a series of educational, public-safety, and quality-of-life improvement grants were disbursed from 2014 onward. My difference-in-differences analysis with two-way fixed effects and cluster bootstrapped standard errors provides the first causal evidence of a modest (approximately 10\%) reduction in violent crime, primarily assaults, attributable to this program. By the end of 2019, violent crime in the Promise Zone descended to around the average level across Philadelphia. A synthetic difference-in-differences estimator corroborates this result. In addition, I find evidence that one of the primary grants of the Promise Zone led to increased standardized test scores. Chapter 2 examines the effect of an information treatment on openness to a particular social service. Fentanyl overdose is a leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. Recently, an organization called Safehouse attempted to open a ``Supervised-Injection Facility" (SIF) in South Philadelphia. Here, intravenous drug-users would have been able to legally use drugs under medical supervision. After progressing past legal hurdles and planning a relatively short-noticed opening, the organization faced immense backlash and ``not in my backyard'' (NIMBY) sentiment from the local community, ultimately leading to the cancellation of the site. This paper applies contingent valuation survey techniques to this novel scenario in the city of Philadelphia. I find strong evidence of a NIMBY effect, where approximately one half of respondents who support the opening of an SIF relatively far away from them oppose or are unsure of its placement within a mile of their residence. I also find that a randomly assigned information treatment is effective in increasing respondents' openness to an SIF in their area. Additionally, I find that the perceived cost to residents of an SIF on their block is high: potentially thousands of dollars per month. Support is substantially higher among respondents from Kensington, the heart of Philadelphia's drug epidemic. Chapter 3 provides the first analysis examining whether Sugar-Sweetened Beverage (SSB) taxes inadvertently led to increased birth rates within urban populations. Due to the staggered nature of urban soda tax implementation across the United States (and lack of parallel trends), I implement the Staggered Synthetic Difference-in-Differences estimator on county-level births per birthing aged woman across the United States. Despite there being a link in the medical literature between soda consumption and reduced fertility, and literature finding successful demand reductions from SSB taxes, results suggest that urban soda taxes do not reduce soda consumption enough to have a noticeable effect on birth rates.

Financial literacy awareness is low among young adults, and financial literacy among Black college students is significantly lower than in other groups (Singh, 2018). However, there is little to no research on why financial literacy is so low among young Black men between 18 and 25. Few studies specifically show how financial literacy and decision-making may be related to their family economics and socialization for young Black men. Using Critical Race Theory and Family Financial Socialization theoretical frameworks, this dissertation project examined a sample of seven young self-identified Black men ages 24 to 25 years old in Northern California Bay Area, California area. This qualitative study utilized a measure of standard financial literacy and one-on-one, semi-structured interviews and focused on the participants' experiences and perceptions of their financial education. All reported employment (either part or full-time), single status, none had children, most lived with their parents, and all were high school graduates, with some having college degrees or matriculated. Most respondents agreed that they carefully considered their purchases, but also mostly agreed that they lived for today, were ready to risk some of their own money for investment and agreed that they had set long-term financial goals. The study found that young black men’s families strongly influenced their adult financial behavior, attitudes, and thoughts. Most participants discussed saving, investing, and retirement planning but were not knowledgeable about savings accounts and invested in cryptocurrency or focused on short-term gains in the stock market. Respondents scored a median score of 2 on a three-item measure of standard financial literacy topics: compound interest and inflation; understanding of financial numeracy skills; risk diversification, and showed they had fair to low levels of financial literacy (Lusardi, 2008). Participants discussed investing their money, mainly in the context of cryptocurrency and social media, with a couple discussing investing for retirement through their employer’s 401k plans. In addition, participants discussed experiences of discrimination and racism, highlighting the ongoing problem of racism in the financial system that affected this sample of young Black men. In their personal lives, a few participants actively incorporated some elements of financial literacy, including saving money and investing in property, usually with the encouragement and aid of family members, mothers, or grandparents. Overall, participants were eager to learn more about sophisticated financial products, like cryptocurrency, but lacked the fundamental knowledge of finances and financial systems, including savings and compounding interest. The participants' narratives in this study showed that young Black men’s financial literacy requires intervention at the community and family levels to improve. The findings from this study suggest that young Black men could benefit from early education around financial literacy and skills, given that their families may not have the knowledge and skills to provide for them.

Countries pledge ever increasing budgets and commitments to host the Olympics. The region whose bid emerges victorious puts in motion the reallocation of inputs, labor, and capital to build all the promised infrastructure to run the event, while the remaining areas in country remain largely unaffected by the intervention. This quasi-experiment scenario is proper for the usage of the Synthetic Control Method but few papers have exploited it. This paper fills the gap by being the first to offer an analysis at local level for a developing economy on the impact of the Olympics. Using Rio de Janeiro's winning bid for the 2016 Olympics in 2009, this paper utilizes annual data from 2000 to 2019 to estimate the impact of the intervention when compared to its synthetic control simulating the absence of such. I estimate a statistically significant average increase in income inequality by .026 in the Gini index due to the Olympics. Furthermore, the estimations show no statistically significant impact of the event for per capita GDP and net admissions into the labor market. The results are consistent with the previous literature and also backs the claims of disillusionment with regards to the benefits of the Olympics by citizens.

This thesis evaluates two different strategies local leaders use to support and grow their economies. The first evaluates how residents from across the American South view and understand their experience of local craft breweries. The second evaluates the effects of direct tourism spending and direct tourism tax receipts on important measures of resident well-being in the twenty-three county Western North Carolina region. The first chapter in this thesis evaluates the overall consumer perception of the growing craft brewing industry within the states of Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana and what factors affect this perception. It uses data from the Local Food System Vitality Survey distributed by the University of Kentucky to evaluate and draw important conclusions on residents’ perceptions of their local food systems. The idea of consumer perception forms the foundation of this chapter. The second chapter in this thesis evaluates the effects of direct tourism spending and direct tourism tax receipts on important measures of resident well-being in the twenty-three county Western North Carolina region. In this case, the measures of well-being are the number of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit recipients, the estimated number of people in poverty (i.e. below the federal poverty line), and the number of employed persons (i.e. receiving taxable income from employment) in the twenty-three county region that makes up Western North Carolina from 1999 to 2019.

In an effort to promote economic development, state-level policymakers have exercised discretion over the use of public money to incentivize subsidy packages for decades. Estimates suggest state governments spend approximately $50 billion annually on these initiatives. However, there has been little empirical research about the political and economic benefits received by local residents from these subsidy programs. This dissertation analyzes the effectiveness of state subsidy policy by considering induced economic spillover effects and population attrition rates. It examines how subsidy distribution is related to employment rates, average weekly wages, and population attrition. The project offers two methodological innovations. First, to look beyond the economic benefits of subsidies, I compile an original dataset of changes in population at the state and local levels. Second, using this dataset, I am able to model net migration flows as a measure of population attrition. By examining differences between urban and rural areas in the economic and political benefits of subsidy programs, I also contribute to the growing literature about the place-based component of U.S. political polarization. From a normative standpoint, I open a conversation about whether such subsidy programs might affirm – or erode – public trust in government through their implications for the accountability of policymakers.

The three chapters of this doctoral dissertation estimate the responses of agricultural productivity, production value of agriculture, and crop supply to some external shocks and policies. Using unique panel datasets for Colombia and the United States, this research provides new insights regarding the responsiveness of agriculture to some socioeconomic effects and related market policies. Chapter 1 studies the impact of armed conflicts in rural areas on legal agricultural productivity in Colombia by using a production function that includes violence shocks such as the forced intra-national displacement of the rural population from 1995 to 2017. Chapter 2 investigates the effect of anti-drug strategies implemented under a joint US-Colombia policy on the value of agricultural production of Colombian regions with coca crops. Chapter 3 examines the impact of a policy in the ethanol market on the supply of biomass from corn production at the extensive and intensive margins. Advisors: Lilyan E. Fulginiti and Richard K. Perrin

Chapter 1 analyzes the impact new hospital construction has on neighboring residential real estate prices. In 2017, the Oishei Children’s Hospital was built in downtown Buffalo, New York, representing a new era for women and children’s medical facilities. Individuals working at the old facility now faced the decision of whether to move closer to the new hospital or have a longer commute. Using property sales data, I analyze how Oishei impacts residential property prices with a difference-in-differences hedonic price model while utilizing three unique time treatments and two distance treatments. The opening of Oishei generated a statistically significant percentage increase in sale prices within a 1- and 2.5-mile radius, suggesting employees may be purchasing houses with shorter commutes. Chapter 2, written with Dr. Heather Stephens, focuses on the expectation that retirees, especially those with higher incomes, relocate to locations that offer more medical facilities and urban and natural amenities. To test this hypothesis, we examine the impact of health care and amenity employment on the population changes of both working age and retirement age groups. Despite the common perception, it appears that working age people are moving in advance of retirement to places with nicer climate and other natural amenities as well as healthcare. After retirement, any additional migration appears to be driven primarily by places with more entertainment type amenities. This suggests that locations that want to attract retirees should focus on attracting middle-aged people well before they retire. Chapter 3 uses the National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS:88), I analyze the impact risky adolescent behavior, previous sexual experiences, and opinions on sexual encounters have on early adulthood decisions to use birth control using a probit model framework. Risky adolescent behavior is known to be connected to heightened risky decisions during early adulthood. Females who smoke tend to follow medical advice and are likely to reduce birth control use; while those who use alcohol are more likely to increase use. Both males and females who engage in sexual activity later in adolescence have an increased probability to use birth control. These results support an argument for early sex education, which can provide necessary information for teens who are already engaging in sexual activity and risky behaviors.

The U.S. coal mining industry was once a booming industry which created and defined communities, particularly in Appalachia. The industry has, however, transformed significantly in the last couple of decades with the passage of environmental policies, with competition from the Shale Revolution, from changes in company ownership, and from mine safety regulation. Overall, the coal industry during this time has experienced a massive decline in production and employment. This dissertation is composed of three papers that investigate these mechanisms and their role in understanding market structure, coal transactions and prices, and mine safety outcomes. Motivated by the shutdowns of U.S. coal mines, Chapter 1 uses data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and hand-compiled coal parent company data, to conduct short- and long-run coal mine survival analyses using mine-plant transaction data. It hypothesizes that utilities that faced higher delivery coal prices were more likely to replace coal-fired with natural gas powered generators. Conditional on the overall U.S. natural gas to coal price trend as well as proxies for mine and plant exposure to environmental policies, the two-stage least squares results indicate that the mean difference in coal delivery price in 2010 between Appalachian mines and other mines causes the mine-plant survival rate to differ by 12.1 percentage points over the 2010-2020 period. Chapter 1 concludes that the mass exits of coal mines in Appalachia arose primarily because underground mines typical of Appalachia are more expensive to operate than surface mines typical of other regions. Following Chapter 1, Chapter 2 looks more closely at how coal markets for electricity generation are concentrated and localized within the United States, particularly Appalachia. Using mine-power plant transaction-level data over the 2009-2019 period from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and hand-compiled data on operating companies’ parent companies and individual owners, Chapter 2 shows that an average power plant sources coal from 4 parents and that around 30% of power plants source coal from a single coal parent. It finds that, conditional on the overall trend, local concentration in Appalachia increased coal delivery prices, with power plants paying up to 9.6% more for coal when sourcing exclusively from a monopolist parent company. Using the same hand-compiled research as Chapters 1 & 2, Chapter 3 investigates coal mine safety and the behavior of coal mine safety violators. This Chapter covers 2002-2018, also using data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA). It was inspired by the passage of the federal Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act of 2006, which aimed to improve mine safety in the United States after the deadly Sago mine disaster. It finds that while some underground mines were reported to be less negligent after the Act, safety did not improve uniformly across all mines. Finally, Chapter 3 finds that financially constrained parent companies regardless of listing status are responsible for exposing their miners to more potentially fatal working conditions.

Occupational regulation affects many people across many aspects of life. This dissertation research investigates the consequences of occupational regulation across three different areas of study: economic history, urban and regional economics, and health policy. The first chapter investigates the historic licensing of emigrant agents. In the period following the US Civil War, firms wished to capitalize on the availability of African American labor. To do so they hired emigrant agents, also known as labor agents, to hire and help with the migration of individuals from the South. Faced with out-migration at the hands of the labor force, some southern states licensed the profession as a substantial barrier to practice. I use linked full-count US Censuses to determine the effect that licensing emigrant agents had on the individual probability of migration both out of state, and out of the South. The second chapter deals with cross-border competition and the effects of licensing massage therapists. Licensing laws are passed at the state level; and thus, there can be considerable variation across states. Should there be much economic activity at state borders, this would be inconsequential. Yet, the existence of metropolitan areas spanning state borders begs the question of what effects can restricting competition be when competitive substitutes are easily available. The third chapter is joint work with Dr. Bobby W. Chung of St. Bonaventure University and presents an analysis of the effect of expanding scope of practice for nurse practitioners.

With the growing popularity of dollar stores, concerns have surfaced over the potential relationship between dollar stores and the closures of grocery stores. Healthy food accessibility for consumers, particularly those in rural areas, has additionally become of great interest. This thesis aims to investigate the potential relationship of dollar store presence and grocery store closures. Data used included County Business Patterns, Rural Urban Continuum Codes, American Community Survey, and authorized SNAP retailer data. The spatial distance between grocery stores and the number of dollar stores at various radii were calculated. Following the computation of the number of dollar stores surrounding grocery stores, Kaplan Meier curves and Cox proportional hazards models were used for survival analysis of grocery stores. The findings of the models used imply that the presence of dollar stores is not associated with increasing the likelihood of grocery store closures.

The last 8 years have seen a dramatic increase in the flow of Central American apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol. Explanations for this surge in apprehensions have been split between two leading hypotheses. Most academic scholars, immigrant advocates, progressive media outlets, and human rights organizations identify poverty and violence (the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis) in Central America as the primary triggers responsible. In contrast, while most government officials, conservative think tanks, and the agencies that work in the immigration and border enforcement realm admit poverty and violence may underlie some decisions to migrate, they instead blame lax U.S. immigration policies, incorrect perceptions of U.S. immigration policy, and the exploitation of immigration system loopholes (the Policy and Loophole Hypothesis) as the real cause of the surge. Despite the existence of opposing claims, neither side has provided a clear data-based explanation regarding what has caused the sudden surge of unauthorized immigration from Central America. To address these competing claims, this study explored both hypotheses from a macrolevel using an empirically-driven quantitative research design. The study first identified the universe of data as tracked and gathered by large reputable organizations for the seven relevant countries/regions in the study (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Latin America, and United States). A total of 195 independent variables were selected with 181 of them being specific to each country/region. This data produced a series of 68 independent stepwise regression models that explored the direct and indirect effects of both competing hypotheses. Ultimately, the study found more overall support for the Policy and Loophole Hypothesis, though it did not produce findings that confidently dismiss the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis. However, findings do suggest the often-cited Poverty and Violence Hypothesis has likely been overstated and exaggerated as a cause of the Central American migration surge. Furthermore, while neither hypothesis had enough inferentially robust support to conclusively back its claims, the findings do provide credence to the argument that the often-dismissed Policy and Loophole Hypothesis must be considered along with the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis in any analysis looking at unauthorized immigration from Central America.

Food banks and their affiliate pantries are an important part of the food assistance patchwork in the United States, feeding millions of individuals including many who are hungry and food insecure. This dissertation contains three essays which explore how consumers value food banks and pantries. The first essay detects a monthly cycle in food pantry use using administrative data from a food bank network in Colorado. It shows that food bank use increases at the end of the month, after SNAP (formerly “food stamps”) benefits have run out. The second essay uses revealed preference approaches to determine the value food banks offer to their communities and the people they serve, estimating that a single food bank network offers its clients approximately $300 in value each year. The third and final essay tests for negative perceptions of food pantry food, finding that particularly among nonusers there is a stigma associated with food from a pantry. It further finds that this stigma is mitigated through the use of images of food. Collectively these essays demonstrate how people use and value food banks and their pantries. This body of research shows that while this form of assistance appears to be a second (or even third) best option for many users, it is still important and valuable assistance.

My dissertation consists of three essays that study the economic consequences of China’s high-speed rail (HSR) expansion. In the first essay, I use the college admission cutoff scores to reveal students’ college preferences under the enrollment quota. By exploiting the quasi-experimental variation in whether or not college cities are connected by the HSR network, I document a two-point increase in the cutoff scores following a HSR station opening in the college city using difference-in-difference (DD) approach. Colleges in the megacities experience a larger increase in cutoff scores after the station opening. These findings suggest that the HSR network stimulates “brain drain” from unconnected cities to connected cities, especially connected megacities. The second essay examines the impact of better HSR accessibility on housing prices in Jiangsu Province. Using transaction data of new houses aggregated to the complex level, I compare the housing prices of properties close to the new HSR stations to those close to pre-existing HSR stations, before and after the new station openings. In a DD specification, I document that housing prices decrease by twenty percent in the areas where the station distance reduces due to the station opening outside the city. The third essay investigates the impacts on household income. Using DD approach, I document that urban households experience a significant increase in total household income following the opening of HSR station in their city. While labor earnings increase, the probability of having business income decreases. Moreover, labor income of the households whose heads work in the manufacturing sector increases little, but for households whose heads work in the transport or communications sectors increases much more than other households, suggesting that the HSR network facilitates urban industry specialization.

This dissertation looks at the role that geographically limited taxation and the behavioral response of economic agents to different forms of regional taxation. While geographic taxation is typically thought to be confined to state and local taxes, federal tax policy can also create designated areas that receive preferential tax treatment. In this dissertation, both types of regional taxation are examined and are unified under common themes such as tax mobility and the definition of the tax base. In chapter 2, I examine the important effect of how the location of high income earners employment is influenced by taxes in the state of employment. Previous literature has focused on the residency decision of high income earners, but that is not the only margin that matters, as in both the United States and the European Union taxes are instead due where income is earned. Using the universe of PGA tour participants from 1970-2018, I estimate the participation response to golfers with respect to a change in their effective tax rate. In the baseline specification, I find a tax participation elasticity of 0.32 and for those in the top 25 percent of prior year earnings, consistent with the superstar effect, find a larger elasticity of .82. I also find that federal taxes play a minimal role in the tax response of golfers and the primary effect is driven by changes in state taxes, suggesting that golfers reallocate their income away from low tax states towards higher tax states instead of a true labor supply response. In Chapter 3, I look at an important distinction in tax policy, whether tax base changes are different than an equivalent change in the tax rate. This is in the context of a gradually narrowing consumption tax base that has largely left both physical and digital services out of the tax base. Using variation in food tax inclusion and the food tax rate combined with data from the Nielsen Corporation on the retail sale of food, I find that a one percent increase in the gross price of food decreases sales in border areas by less than one percent using a border pair identification strategy in both a static and dynamic setting. In addition I estimate the effect of removing food from the tax base using removals from West Virginia and South Carolina and find no additional effects beyond an equivalent rate reduction, suggesting among this very specific population, there is no meaningful difference between the two. This is largely suggestive that broadening the tax base would provide large gains in revenue with little loss in efficiency. Chapter 4 explores whether place-based policies, which are geographically defined programs that provide special benefits to particularly poor neighborhoods lead to persistent effects once the programs expire. This question is important as the United States as well as other countries continue to invest in place-based policies without knowing the long run impacts. Using restricted access American Community Survey and the expiration of Renewal Communities relative to Empowerment Zones, I find little evidence for a permanent improvement within Renewal Communities, with RC employment, income, and rent decreasing relative to the continuing Empowerment Zones. However, I do find that for those individuals who live and work in the zone, there is no subsequent decline in employment or income, suggesting that there is heterogeneity in persistence. Given that the newest iteration of place-based policies in the United States, Opportunity Zones, largely shares the same benefit structures as Renewal Communities it is unlikely that we will see lasting benefits from it's implementation.

This dissertation explores various regional responses to globalization. The first chapter studies how booming regions spread local windfall from a commodity boom in the world market to other regions. The second chapter explores price divergence in the rice markets as an impact of a binding import ban, a policy imposed to support farmers from facing import competition. Lastly, the third chapter shows how the proliferation of electronic media, an aspect of globalization, facilitates improvement in marketing technology in advertising tobacco products. I show that such improvement in reaching consumers and potential consumers increases the smoking participation of young adults.Chapter 1 studies how regions respond to price shocks in the presence of internal migration. This paper examines Indonesia in the 2000s as it faced a commodity boom for palm oil, which became one of its main export commodities. I exploit the variation in the land shares and crop suitability to compute the potential contribution of main crops across district economies as a measure of local exposure to shocks. I find that the commodity boom increased the purchasing power of palm oil-producing districts. These districts also received more migration, providing evidence that palm oil price shocks were no longer localized. Indeed, internal migration spread the windfall. I also find spillover to neighboring districts. However, these relatively higher levels of purchasing power did not last after the commodity boom ended in 2014. I show that the palm-oil sector grew through extensification as a response to the price shocks, with no indication of growth through intensification. I estimate the overall welfare gains in Indonesia between 2005 and 2010 and find substantial gains from migration.Chapter 2 explores and documents the price divergence that occurs due to a large and ongoing import ban on rice imposed by Indonesia. I find that despite the increase in the retail price of rice, rice-producing districts do not enjoy higher purchasing power. The trade protection did not spur growth in the rice sector either. I find that the import ban causes price divergence in two dimensions. First, it causes regional price divergence, implying the lack of arbitrage across rice markets. Second, I find evidence of incomplete pass-through as the wedge between the retail prices and farm-gate prices widens. These findings provide guidance for further research and trade policy evaluation to consider aspects such as imperfect competition and domestic trade frictions in determining the distributional impact of the import ban.Chapter 3 is motivated by the fact that the tobacco epidemic kills more than 8 million people every year. Despite a global decline in smoking rates, smoking prevalence is rising in many developing countries. This paper exploits the temporal and regional variation in the proliferation of television reception across Indonesia in the 2000s to examine the impact of advertising in electronic media on smoking participation by young adults. Applying the marketing theory drawn from international trade, I find evidence of a new-consumer margin in tobacco consumption due to improvement in marketing technology. Living in a subdistrict with one standard deviation higher television exposure increases male young adults smoking participation by 4-6%. This impact is especially significant for those of 17 to 19 years old but not older persons.

Examining West Virginia's Economic Development: Natural Resources, Development Agencies, and Labor Force Development Gaillynn Bowman Economic development is well-recognized as being fundamental to facilitating an overall improved quality of life for communities and their residents. Throughout West Virginia’s history, the state has experienced economic hardships caused by boom and bust cycles associated with resource extraction. This dissertation consists of three essays that explore the impacts of economic development activities, including conservation programs, economic development agency initiatives, and workforce development agencies. The first essay explores the relationship nonresident landowners have with the conservation programs within West Virginia, specifically the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) agency. Absentee ownership plays a significant role in the state’s economic development, particularly in rural areas such as the Hampshire and Mineral county region where more than 153,000 acres belong to absentee landowners, out of the approximately 483,000 acres in these counties. The results suggest there is a statistically significant negative impact regarding absentee landowners adopting conservation practices. Farm size and land use designation have positive and statistically significant impacts on conservation adoption. Study limitations relate primarily to relatively small geographical area used in the analysis. Commonalities in resistance to adoption of conservation practice may be transferable to other government programs facing opposition. The second essay addresses the issue of economic development sustainability. Based upon a survey of economic development professionals, the findings indicate that over time, West Virginia economic development agencies have invested in higher levels of business supports/incentives, while inversely, these same agencies have provided fewer activities in support of environmental, quality of life, and community-based economic development. This study found that concern for economic sustainability was the most significant reason for conducting their current economic development strategies. Alternatively, West Virginia economic development agencies have selected activities that do not reflect a focus on balancing the economy, addressing environmental issues, and/or providing an equitable quality of life, all of which research indicates will ensure sustainable development. Overall, when measured by a balanced approach, strategies focusing on business economic development activities, instead of environmental sustainability and social equity, have resulted in a lower range of economic activities and reduced sustainability. The third essay examines labor force participation barriers and the employment service agencies that help West Virginians gain employment. This study finds that transportation limitations were the most common reported barrier to job placement by employment agency personnel. The study also found that the fields of occupation in which clients were placed into employment positions did not align with financial capital development nor did the industry sectors offer career pathways that would lead to earning a living wage, with the five most common employment positions ranging in median hourly wages from $11.43 to $16.07. These occupations included the fields of health care, customer service/retail, food operation, cleaning and maintenance, and factory workers. The five least common job placements ranged in median hourly wages from $9.99 to $38.31, and in the following fields: IT sector, child development, small business owner, financial operations, and the education sector. Statistical significance indicated the range of workforce placements was more positively related to the range of workforce development activities and services provided by agencies than to the range of professional certifications held by the agencies’ staff members. With regards to financial, social, and human capital, this research found that increasing the range of employment activities and services leads to increases in job placements in higher wage sectors, as indicated by the increased range of job placement fields.

This dissertation examines three empirical issues in energy and agricultural economics using econometrics models whose titles are: 1) Do Natural Hazards in the Gulf Coast Still Matter for State-Level Natural Gas Prices in the US? Evidence After the Shale Gas Boom; 2) Do Exploitations of Marcellus and Utica Shale Formations Improve Regional Economy in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia? A Synthetic Control Analysis; and 3) How Did Covid-19 Impact US Household Food Spending? An Analysis Six Months In. The first essay assesses the impact of natural hazards on state-level natural gas prices and evaluates the effects of the shale gas boom on the hazard-price relationship. Property losses due to natural hazards in Texas and Louisiana are used to represent supply shocks in US natural gas market from the Gulf area. Panel distributed lag models are applied to a state-level panel data set from 1995 to 2016. Estimation results show that natural gas prices in both importing and exporting states have become less responsive to natural hazards in Texas, but more sensitive to hazard events in Louisiana since the shale boom. These results are robust to the break dates used, the geographical location of states considered, and the empirical specifications employed. The increasing importance of Louisiana in natural gas pricing is perhaps due to its role as the benchmark pricing location for US natural gas and its expansive pipeline networks. The second essay examines the impact of shale gas development on various economic outcomes in three Appalachian states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Four key economic indicators (poverty rate, population growth, employment growth, and income per capita growth) are considered. Estimation results obtained from the synthetic control method using 2002-2017 data are mixed. The shale development decreased the poverty rate and increased the employment growth rate in Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the short-run (2010 to 2013). In West Virginia, shale development also increased personal income per capita growth in the short run. However, most of the positive impacts disappeared or turned negative in the later post-boom period (2014 to 2017). The shale development did not bring significant economic benefits to Ohio. Nonetheless, shale development exerts a potential long-term negative effect on population growth in all three states. The third essay exploits a nationwide survey of primary grocery shoppers to estimate the impact of Covid-19 on household spending behavior. The survey was conducted in August 2020 when the economy had partially reopened in many areas of the country and consumers had different spending opportunities compared to when the Covid-19 lockdown began. Various sociodemographic information such as household income, age, Covid-19 severity level, access to grocery stores, and farmers markets were collected. Findings based on ordered Probit models show that food insecurity problems impacted middle-class households (those with income below $50,000 and those with income between $50,000 and $99,999). Households with children and/or the elderly (i.e., those that usually require higher food quality and nutrition intakes) had a higher probability of increasing their spending during Covid-19 than before. Furthermore, consumers’ food safety practice levels and the Covid-19 severity level within the country of their residences significantly affected their overall food grocery and local produce shopping behaviors.

Roads are an integral component of civilization, connecting people, markets, and ideas. In different settings and geographies, roads can take on many different purposes. In rural, more isolated areas, roads can serve as a cost-saving benefit and can be used as tools to increase accessibility. In urban, more congested areas, roads can be seen as an externality-producing hindrance. Naturally, given this view, the overall analysis of roads should reflect these different settings. To date, however, the study of roads in the economics literature has surprisingly large pitfalls, notably in terms of topics of study and methodologies used. Spending on roads is a non-negligible portion of government budgets across the country, making this topic relevant to study to make informed policy suggestions. This dissertation research, titled The Road Less Traveled: Economic Analysis of Roads and Highways, analyzes one overarching theme using three different perspectives: urban, political economy, and regional. Chapter 1 examines the impact of high occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV) on commuting times. The effects of HOV lanes studied from a causal perspective have been minimal in the economics literature. Knowing the impacts of these types of infrastructure projects is beneficial in terms of public policy and resource allocation. Using an instrumental variable (IV) approach to overcome the endogeneity problems associated with HOV lane location selection, this study aims to uncover the impacts of HOV lanes on commuters' time spent going to and coming home from work in California. Making use of the 2017 National Household Travel Survey, and after data pre-processing through coarsened exact matching (CEM), this paper finds that both having HOV lanes in workplace counties and living closer to HOV lanes cause increased commute times to and from work for commuters, lending credence to earlier works on road construction and traffic outcomes citing induced demand from increased road construction (Duranton and Turner, 2011). Chapter 2 studies the impact of mayoral election cycles impact the timing and location of road maintenance. Political incentives affect infrastructure construction, but how incentives affect infrastructure upkeep, like road maintenance, is sparsely documented. Previous empirical results find different conclusions than theoretical evidence about road maintenance perceptions. Political alignment and local election cycles are leveraged using difference-in-differences to investigate if political incentives cause shifts in road maintenance. Robust results identify political distortions in invasive road maintenance timing. Local election cycles, which are widespread and frequent, shift road maintenance timing. Conservative calculations suggest local US elections cost at least $185.5 million from 1960-2020, equivalent to 4 million meters of maintenance or maintaining all local Pittsburgh roads about 1.45 times. Chapter 3 looks at the impact of rural roads on mortality outcomes in the Appalachian region. Specific attention to federally funded rural roads and highways is sparse given implicit endogeneity concerns about road placement decisions for the sake of rural development and market exposure. This study examines the impact of the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS), one of the largest and most expensive federal infrastructure projects in the United States, on mortality outcomes in the region. IV results suggest ADHS construction significantly reduced travel-time-sensitive mortality rates, such as heart disease and hypertension, in earlier decades of the sample. IV results also suggest the ADHS may be associated with increased mortality rates, notably accidents, in later decades of the sample. The additional cost caused by the ADHS in terms of mortality is estimated to be $24.2 billion dollars over the length of the sample. However, benefits such as improved travel times, employment, and income increases outweigh these costs.

The decreasing pheasant population from 2008 to 2019 across South Dakota is a concern as it may lead to decreased hunting activity and consequently reduced economic activity. Past studies have shown that changes in the landscape (e.g., from changing agricultural practices) is a major factor responsible for decreasing the bird population. However, these studies lack a clear understanding of how the fluctuating crop mixes impact the pheasant population together with harvest volume. The goal of this study was to analyze the pheasant population and the quantity of harvested birds during 2008 to 2019 in South Dakota to understand how variations in some of the key crop areas were associated with pheasant population. The study focused on understanding how bird population and number of hunters influence the pheasant harvest volume. To achieve this goal, a simultaneous equation model was employed to estimate both bird population and harvest volume jointly. The study showed that wheat, alfalfa and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acres were positively related with pheasant population. Similarly, the number of hunters and bird population were positively related with the number of harvested birds. There was a negative relation of corn/soybean and other hay acres with both variables. It was also found that wheat and alfalfa acres were strong determinants over CRP acres and winter wheat was more likely than other crops to enhance pheasant population and harvest volume. Efforts to increase small grains and forage crops, including CRP acres, may be necessary to maintain and increase pheasant population and harvest volume.

My dissertation consists of three essays that study the unintended consequences of education policies. The first two essays examine the impact of higher education expansion in China on household saving rate and individual migration rate. The third essay looks into the impact of a school redistricting plan and the construction a new school on housing prices in Fayette County, Kentucky. In the first essay, I utilize the large national expansion on higher education in China which exogenously increase the enrollment of college students, to estimate the induced change in the expected college probability and how it affects saving rates for households with young children both before and after the expansion. I find a ten percentage increase in the change in college probability raises household saving rates by more than seven percentage points. In additional to analyzing the saving behaviors of households, I analyze the migration rates of young adults in China using the same policy shock. I use an instrumental variable approach and instrument college status by access to college in province-college year level to identify the effect of college attendance on young adults' later life location choice. 2SLS estimates suggest that attending college significantly increases the likelihood of residing in a different province later in life by 9.1 percentage points. In the third essay, I take advantage of the approval of school redistricting plan in Fayette County, Kentucky to examine the impact of school quality on housing prices. I find prices for homes redistricted from a lower-performing school into the proposed school catchment area increase by six percent. For houses in higher-performing school catchment areas redistricted to the proposed new school district, there is a smaller increase in value. Houses redistricted from higher-performing schools to lower-performing schools decrease in value by three to five percent. The estimate shows that homes in the redistricted areas increased by $108 million relative to homes that were not redistricted.

This dissertation consists of three essays on the U.S. Health care policy. Each paragraph below refers to the three abstracts for the three chapters in this dissertation, respectively. I provide quantitative evidence on how much Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) affects the retail opioid prescribing behaviors. Using the American Community Survey (ACS), I retrieve county-level high dimensional panel data set from 2010 to 2017. I employ three separate identification strategies: difference-in-difference, double selection post-LASSO, and spatial difference-in-difference. I compare how the retail opioid prescribing behaviors of counties, that are mandatory for prescribers to check the PDMP before prescribing controlled substances (must-access PDMPs), vary from the counties where such a PDMP check is voluntary. I find must-access PDMP reduces about seven retail opioid prescriptions dispensed per 100 persons per year in each county. But, when I compare must-access PDMPs counties with bordering counties without such law, I find a reduction of three retail opioid prescriptions dispensed per 100 persons per year suggesting the possibility of spillovers of retail opioid prescribing behaviors. As of 2019, all U.S. states, except Missouri, have enacted voluntary Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs). In response to the relatively low uptake of voluntary access, several states have strengthened their PDPMs by requiring providers to access information regarding prescription drug use under certain circumstances. These “must-access” PDPMs require states to view a patient's prescription history to facilitate the detection of suspicious prescription and utilization behaviors. This paper develops causal evidence of the effectiveness of “must-access PDPM laws in reducing prescription opioid overdose death rates relative to voluntary PDMP states. I find that PDMPs are ineffective in reducing prescription opioid overdose deaths overall, but the effects are heterogeneous across states with “must-access” PDMP states. I find that marijuana and naloxone access laws, poverty level, income, and education confound the impact of must-access PDMPs on prescription opioid overdose deaths. The optional provision of Medicaid expansion, through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has triggered a national debate among diverse stakeholders regarding the impacts of Medicaid coverage on various dimensions of public health, costs, and benefits. Randomized experiments like the Rand Health Insurance Experiment and the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment have generated some credible estimates of the average treatment effects of insurance access. However, identical policy interventions can have heterogeneous effects on different subpopulations. This paper uses data from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment to estimate the heterogeneous treatment effects of access to Medicaid on health care utilization, preventive care utilization, financial strain, and self-reported physical and mental health. I detect heterogeneous treatment effects using a cluster-robust generalized random forest, a causal machine learning approach. I find that the impact of Medicaid is more pronounced among relatively older non-elderly and poorer households, consistent with standard adverse selection theory. Furthermore, I implement the “efficient policy learning," another machine learning strategy, to identify policy changes that prioritize providing Medicaid coverage to the subgroups that are likely to benefit the most. On average, the proposed reforms would improve the average probability of outpatient visits, preventive care use, overall health outcomes, having a personal doctor and clinic, and happiness by a range of 2% to 9% over a random assignment baseline. These findings help design Medicaid Section 1115 waiver.

During the first 60 years of television broadcasting, prime time programming was dominated by the "Big Three" networks--NBC, ABC, and CBS. Their dominance in the market functioned as an oligopoly, supported by longstanding regulatory structures. Beginning in the 1970s, a wave of deregulation and change from satellite technology swept the industry, making it easier for other firms to enter the market. In 1986, the premiere of FOX saw a viable fourth network break through to compete with the Big Three. This paper analyzes inefficiencies on both the cost and content production side of prime time television, using survival analysis to study both the practices of Big Three networks with respect to programming as well as potential gaps in Big Three coverage which were exploitable by FOX to gain a foothold, finding in particular that FOX's observed practice of stacking comedies on Sundays took place at the same time that Big Three networks were facing weakness on Sundays in terms of show survival. In recent years, city governments across the U.S. have sought to address the problems of industrial decline and urban blight through initiatives designed to revitalize local areas and fill the empty coffers of municipal and state governments. One popular option in this quest has been a push for the legalization of gambling coupled with the construction of new casinos and other gambling facilities; of which the Hollywood Casino in Franklin County, OH (opened in 2012) is a good example. This paper uses several hedonic methods--including the standard hedonic model, a repeat-sales (RSR) model, and a hybrid model in the manner of \cite{case_quigley_1991}--to explore the effect of this new casino on property values. All methods find evidence of a negative effect on housing values associated with proximity to the casino, implying that at least with respect to individual plot values the addition of the casino is in fact a disamenity to residents. The final component of this paper seeks to measure whether the losses in property tax revenue associated with this decline in value meet or exceed the revenue stream generated from casino activities; finding evidence in favor of property tax tradeoffs in excess of casino revenues to the local government. We use daily hotel data on price, occupancy, and revenue to analyze the economic impact of Pearl Jam's ``Home Shows'' in Seattle, WA. These two concerts were attended by over 100,000 Pearl Jam fans, many from outside the state of Washington, including international tourists. We find that the Home Shows generated approximately 230,000 hotel nights before, during, and after the two concerts. With an increase in the average daily room rate ranging from $12 six days prior to $144 on concert days, hotel revenue in Seattle increased by over $58 million as a result of the Home Shows. We estimate that increased demand from Pearl Jam fans led to an increase in hotel tax revenue of between $6.69 million and \$9.15 million. While the `Home Shows' received no direct public subsidy, we argue that our results represent a `best case' scenario on the public revenue side of large cultural events that attract tourists.

This body of work consists of three research projects developed around a central theme – what might cause a person to leave the place where they live? As a native and resident of West Virginia, this question is not a purely academic one. My region has long struggled with how to retain our “best and brightest” in the face of challenging socio-economic conditions. Looking at the question differently, understanding what negative influences may exist to cause a person that might otherwise have remained in a place to leave, could provide large influences on policy and strategy for retention of residents in the area – and help to answer the “who” in the questions of economic and social redevelopment. My research utilizes econometric techniques to analyze questions related to demographic, natural resource, environmental, health, and regional economics. In this work, I have examined three different topics that may be related to the loss of regional populations, with a principal focus on rural and exurban counties in the United States (US), Appalachia, and the state of West Virginia (WV). My first essay focuses on examining whether there are population losses, specifically of working-aged adults who may be out-migrating, caused or influenced by drug overdose deaths, including opioid deaths, and the concurrent economic impacts. Specifically, does a higher overdose death rate lead to increased population loss via out-migration from a place, particularly in rural areas? The opioid epidemic has been extensively studied, and is known to be more prevalent in rural and lower income places, with particular concentrations in Appalachia. For example, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky were the top 4 states in the 2017 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) rankings for overdose death. If these higher death rates are causing outmigration, then the implied costs to those regions are higher than have been previously discussed, due to possible lost productivity and workforce losses. My results suggest that there is a strong, negative relationship between higher overdose death rates and future population change across the US. My final two essays examine what, if any, long term population change effects result from two separate industrial “disasters” that impacted water supplies. The second essay focuses on the Elk River Spill (also known as the Freedom Industries spill) that occurred on January 9, 2014. A storage tank, owned by Freedom Industries, ruptured, spilling a toxic chemical, 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM), into the Elk River. This spill contaminated the potable water of 300,000 residents in nine counties in the Charleston, WV, area, and rendered the water unusable for any purpose to residents for several weeks. Analysis using a synthetic control approach (SCM) suggests that this spill did have long term negative population effects on the most heavily impacted counties of the spill, notably in Kanawha County, where Charleston, WV, is located. My final essay focuses on the impact on population change from the contamination of water by another chemical known as PFOA, which affected 10 counties in WV and Ohio along the Ohio River. While this analysis also utilizes a synthetic control approach, it also makes a contribution to the literature by helping advance the application of the SCM method to events that have an unclear “treatment” time. In this case, the timing is unclear due to the slow release of information. Its potential impact ranges from late 2004, when DuPont (the polluter) agreed to a $107.6 million legal settlement, to 2012 when an independent panel – the “C8 Science Panel” – release its findings, establishing a probable link to six disease categories, including cancer and thyroid disease. The extended time period over which information was released presented the largest challenge to our research, as there is a seven-year period of imperfect information about the impact of PFOA on residents of these counties. After isolating the timing, my results suggest that this spill also has had long term negative population effects in the impacted counties, with the cost of the loss of population greatly exceeding the cost of punitive fines and settlements in the aftermath of the incident.

This dissertation studies the governance structure and its economic impacts in the Chinese context. Specifically, I use a public choice framework to analyze how institutions influence economic and political activities of both public officials and private sectors. Chapter 1 employs the synthetic control method to investigate the effects of institutions to regional economic development. Chongqing Municipality, a province-level region in China, had a unique leader from late 2007 to early 2012 who conducted red ideology movements and legal intervention. The empirical results reveal that although the economic policies promoted the Chongqing economy, the Maoist political policies partially undermined its economic growth in the short run. Chapter 2 analyzes the collective actions and horizontal bargaining within every political branch in contemporary China. I argue that this horizontal bargaining within the party is enhanced by the vertical bargaining. Incorporating Kornai’s work on socialism, the “party chief and mayor” template extends the bargaining model from one key figure and one group in the “king and council” template to two key figures and their respective confidants. In addition, it incorporates institutional constraints into the graphical model. It also defines a “collective decision probability function,” which shows how the party chief and mayor model reaches “checks and balances” that limit the policy space, regardless of whether the policy is exogenous or endogenous. Chapter 3 empirically tests the theory proposed in the second chapter. It investigates how economic institutions influence the “matching” degree between party chief and mayor across provinces. In the Chinese context, these city level politicians are appointed, i.e. “elected”, by the province level politicians who also face institutional constraints. Results suggest that more economic freedom in one province reduces the difference between party chief and mayor in the biographical background and career experience components. However, more economic freedom in one province increases the difference of the ideology component between party chief and mayor. The results deepen understanding of institutions’ role in the political system of authoritarian regimes.

This dissertation is an assessment of market and non-market valuation of renewable energy, specifically within the electricity sector. It contributes to the energy and economics literature through a battery of three chapters. This dissertation utilizes New Mexico as a case study, which is an economically poor and natural-resource rich state that produces and consumes electricity in the southwestern United States. It is also one of the four states that have adopted a policy for 100% clean energy by 2045. The first chapter models state- and county-level economic (e.g., employment, economic output, etc.) and environmental (e.g., externality, health impact, water use, greenhouse gases, etc.) impacts of the switch from fossil fuel generation to renewables on a state’s economy. This chapter provides a roadmap of how to measure the economic and environmental impacts of different energy scenarios by integrating various methodologies such as econometrics, GIS, and input-output into a unique system dynamics model. Findings from this chapter suggest that renewable energy intensive scenarios are only economically viable when market failure (externalities) is taken into account. Further, counties with varying energy potential and population density will experience variation in impacts. The following two chapters are based on a discrete choice experiment survey conducted in New Mexico in 2017. The second chapter estimates people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for renewable energy, particularly solar energy. Results suggest that respondents support an increased renewable portfolio standard solar requirement and they have a positive marginal WTP for rooftop solar and smart meter installation. These values are impacted by several factors, including location, environmental worldview, and proximity to solar. We observe a distance decay effect on respondents’ marginal WTP for different solar plans. As there are often questions concerning the validity of survey responses, the third chapter focuses on the impact of response under two alternative mechanisms: with and without having respondent sign an oath prior to taking a survey. Hypothesis testing results show no evidence that the oath lowers valuation measures in this setting. There are three major lessons from this dissertation. First, 100% clean energy policies are more desirable when internalizing external costs and hence correct for market failure. Second, consumers are willing to a pay a premium to accompany the move towards higher level of renewable energy diffusion. Third, an oath script may have limited application outside of the experimental lab and is not effective under every condition. This research will provide improved information to enact sustainable energy policies that are effective for the economy, environment, and individual consumers.

In 1927, the Farmers’ Federation agricultural cooperative in Western North Carolina launched an organization to solicit funds from wealthy donors. The money raised through philanthropic campaigns enabled the cooperative to fund large-scale agricultural projects, which helped members navigate the dramatic agricultural transformations of the early twentieth century. Although the cooperative advocated a progressive program of business-minded, scientific farming, its leadership modified programs to reflect farmer members’ limited resources and the realities of mountain production. As a result, the co-op provided a crucial bridge between white farmers and new methods of agricultural production that reached deep into peoples’ familial and productive lives. Cooperation, however, was never sufficiently profitable for those projects to be self-sustaining. Instead, the cooperative relied on fundraising that traded on the region’s relatively new national image as a reservoir of pure Anglo-Saxon stock. Fundraising efforts promised urban elites that donations to white mountaineers would combat the threat they perceived arising from Eastern European and Catholic immigrants by drawing a previously isolated, but racially pure, population into national life. Within this framework, the Farmers’ Federation boosters erased the area’s substantial African American population and helped create a regional identity that denied black Appalachians’ existence. Contrary to this depiction, black highlanders were woven into all aspects of mountain life. In fact, the expensive programs that the co-op created with donated money relied on and exploited African American labor. As a result, the Farmers’ Federation cooperative provides a lens for uncovering the national culture of white supremacy beneath the mythological racelessness of stereotypical depictions of the Southern mountains. Furthermore, the Farmers’ Federation and its fundraising efforts reveal the economic benefits that Southern whites accrued as a result of national elevation of the region’s racial associations. Finally, an examination of the Farmers’ Federation and its fundraising arm traces one instance in which wealthy donors’ efforts to buy a particular vision of racial supremacy through philanthropy brought millions of dollars into the highlands, supporting the creation of institutions, schools, and infrastructure with the capacity to maintain racial disparities long after the decline of national fervor for investing in mythological Anglo-Saxon populations.

This thesis will address the economic development of countries from the strategic perspective of the United States, and consider how this development will progress overlaid in the context of the Chinese framework for the projection of national power. Using an inter-disciplinary approach, this research will synthesize sources on national security policy and economics, while seeking a Christian apologetic framework to answer these questions: How can the United States promote the economic development of countries in the Asia-Pacific region using a biblical economic-development model, as a part of its national strategy? This thesis focuses on some of the political and socio-economic ideas which catalyze economic development, explaining how these ideas can be strategically promoted by the US government: using the vehicle of civil-society initiatives in economically under-developed strategic-partner countries to foster economic development and securing their autonomy from emerging hegemonic powers.

This dissertation combines large scale datasets to evaluate crop prediction, land values, and consumption of a crop being considered to advance a sustainable bioeconomy. In chapter 2, we propose a novel application of the multinomial logit (MNL) model to estimate the conditional transition probabilities of crop choice for the state of Kentucky. Utilizing the recovered transition probabilities the forecast distributions of total acreages for alfalfa, corn, soybeans, tobacco, and wheat produced in the state from 2010 to 2015 can be recovered. The Cropland Data Layer is merged with the Common Land Unit dataset to allow for the identification of crop choice at the field level. Our findings show there are higher probabilities of planting soybeans or wheat after corn relative to corn after corn, tobacco, or alfalfa. In addition, the transition probability of the crop rotation demonstrates that corn will be planted after soybean, and vice versa and that alfalfa has a lower probability of being rotated with other crops from year to year. These findings are expected with traditional crop rotation in the U.S., and a characteristic of a perennial crop, especially for alfalfa. Finally, forecasting results indicate that there are significantly wider distributions in corn and soybean, whereas there is a little variation in the tobacco, wheat and alfalfa acres in the simulation. In chapter 3, we identify critical consumer-demographic characteristics that are associated with the consumption of products containing hemp and investigate their effect on total expenditure in the U.S. To estimate the likelihood of market participation and consumption level, the Heckman selection model, is employed using the maximum likelihood estimation procedure utilizing Nielsen consumer panel data from 2008 to 2015. Results indicate marketing strategies targeting consumers with higher education and income levels can attract new customers and increase sales from current consumers for this burgeoning market. Head-of-household age in different regions shows mixed effects on decisions to purchase hemp products and consumption levels. Findings will provide a basic understanding of a consumer profile and overall hemp market that has had double-digit growth over the last six years. As the industry continues to move forward, policymakers are going to need a deeper understanding of the factors driving the industry if they are going to create regulations that support the development of the industry. In chapter 4, we investigate the factors that affect agricultural land values by proposing a new rich dataset, Zillow Transaction and Assessment Data (ZTRAX) provided by Zillow from 2009 to 2014. we also examine whether National Commodity Crop Productivity Index (NCCPI) could be a good indicator of land values or not by comparing two different regression models between county-level cash rent and parcel-level NCCPI. Finally, this study incorporates flexible functional forms of the parcel size to test the parcel size and land values relations. Findings show that factors influencing agricultural land values in states with heterogeneous agricultural lands such as Kentucky are not different from other states with relatively homogeneous agricultural lands. This study also provides suggestive evidence that there is a non-linear relationship between parcel size and land values. Furthermore, we find that a disaggregated NCCPI at parcel-level could be considered an acceptable indicator to estimate agricultural values compared to an aggregated cash rent at county-level.

The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the economic impact of newly operational ethanol biorefineries on rural counties in the U.S. Midwest region for the period 2001 to 2015 using a quasi-experimental approach. Rapid growth in the ethanol industry expanded the number of ethanol plants located in the U.S. Midwest from 54 in 2001 to 173 in 2015. Out of the counties with 119 new ethanol biorefineries, 97 counties met the general treatment criteria defined in this dissertation, but only 56 of those counties qualified for the rural treatment criteria. Counties with ethanol biorefineries that qualified for treatment were organized into a treated group based on county level data. Six counterfactual control groups (or control counties without ethanol biorefineries) were contemporaneously matched to the treated counties based on the Mahalanobis distance metric evaluated on a set of 29 selection variables. Matching occurred on two levels. In the first level, matching was performed both for the in-state level and over the entire Midwest region. In the second level, three criteria were used to select the final control groups: Mahalanobis distance metric best match, population best match, and rural-urban continuum codes (RUCC) best match. Economic impact is evaluated based on the growth rate in real per capita earnings for the treated group over a period from one to five years after treatment relative to the control group. A difference-in-differences (DID) model is used to assess the significance of results where the dependent variable is the natural log of real per capita earnings and a set of control variables is used to capture state fixed effects, time fixed effects and spillover effects. Empirical results evaluated against a representative Midwest control group and over six regression models adjusting for various fixed effects produced, on average, one-sided significant results for average treatment on the treated (ATOT) with a (min, max) range of growth rates as (5.53%-7.63%), (10.0%-12.0%), (14.7%-19.6%), (14.5%-18.3%), and (13.3%-18.9%) from one to five years after treatment, respectively. The minimum value of these estimates can be represented as an uncorrected average annual growth rate as 2.75%, 3.33%, 3.68%, 2.90%, and 2.22% over the respective period from one to five years after treatment. Employment levels for the treated group increased on average by 211 at the county level five years after treatment. A comparative Midwest control group lost, on average, 169 jobs over the five year period after treatment. A treated county employment multiplier calculated using the direct, indirect and induced employment impacts varied from 1.46 during the year of treatment to 7.6 five years after treatment relative to the control group. Five years after treatment, the treated group employment rate gradually increased, on average, by 2.2% which was better than either of the two counterfactual control groups used in this comparison. Overall, the analysis presented in this dissertation does show statistically significant positive economic impacts, on average, for rural U.S. Midwest counties with newly operational ethanol biorefineries relative to control counties without an ethanol biorefinery. These results demonstrate that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) contributed to positive rural economic development impacts in treated counties with the possibility of spillover effects positively affecting contiguous counties.

Spatial interaction and the locational structure between observations have recently gained more attention in the field of econometrics for both cross-sectional and panel data analyses. Compared to a non-spatial economic model, a spatial model relaxes the assumption of independency in observations. This research will apply spatial econometrics modeling in three different fields in applied economics: 1) water charge and minimum monthly access charge in West Virginia municipalities, 2) Naloxone access law and opioid overdose deaths among the U.S. states, and 3) ��2.5 concentrations and asthma hospitalizations in Pennsylvania counties. Based on the nature of water resource imposing spillovers in water charge model is inevitable, likewise Naloxone law and ��2.5 concentrations. We expect to see a significant spillover effects in water charge and minimum water access charge as well as Naloxone law and asthma prevalence among observations. In Chapter 2, we apply linear and log-log functional forms plus spatial econometric analyses to a 2014 dataset of 125 municipal water utilities in West Virginia to investigate the determinants of charges for water use and access. The water charges models are consistent with the theory of water cost determination as water source, debt, and economies of size and scale influence what consumers pay for water. Based on model results, groundwater use by utilities is estimated to save household customers in West Virginia over $12.6 million annually. The results for the spatial model indicate that there are moderate spillover effects for both water and minimum access charges among utilities. West Virginia households using municipal water typically pay far below the OECD standard of 3% to 5% of household income which may explain why socioeconomic factors do not influence monthly minimum charges. A manuscript based on this essay is accepted for the publication for in the journal, Water Economics & Policy. Chapter 3 contains an essay examining naloxone access laws. Opioid overdose is the leading cause of unintentional death in the U.S. Naloxone is a medicine that reverses the overdose. The second essay investigates the effects of Naloxone access laws on opioid overdose death rates. Analyses reveal that when broken down by access law provisions, there exist positive effects on overdose death rates depending upon the provision. The results indicate that Naloxone access provisions have regional impacts by influencing overdose death rates in neighboring states. Looking across multiple provisions, our findings provide no statistical evidence that these laws reduce opioid overdose death rates. This essay has been published in the Review of Regional Studies. Finally, Chapter 4 is an essay relating ��2.5 concentrations and asthma hospitalization across Pennsylvania counties. Ambient air pollution adversely impacts human health. According to the World Health Organization, 235 million people around the world currently suffer from asthma, which includes approximately 25 million in the United States. There is substantial epidemiological evidence linking outdoor air pollution and asthma symptoms, more specifically particulate matter concentrations and asthma. Based upon county level data from 2001-2014, a spatial panel framework based upon prevailing wind patterns is used to investigate the direct and indirect impacts of PM2.5 concentration levels on asthma hospitalization rates in Pennsylvania. This model controls for population density, precipitation, per capita income, and smoking rate. Results show that PM2.5 concentrations have both positive direct and indirect effects on asthma hospitalization rates. Varying with county population size, a one ��/�� increase in PM2.5 will add asthma hospitalization costs between $3.1M (Philadelphia County) and $37,732 (Cameron County). This study highlights the need for a more accurate impact analysis of ambient air pollution on asthma that reflects the impacts on neighboring regions as well. A one ��/�� increase in PM2.5 concentrations throughout all counties in Pennsylvania raises the number of annual asthma hospitalizations by over 1,200, with 26.8% of this increase occurring due to spillover effects. In the case of asthma hospitalization rates from PM2.5 pollution, an appropriate wind direction algorithm is important to identify spillover effects across counties. This essay has been under review in the Journal of Regional Analysis and Policies.

The body of work presented here consists of a collection of research projects developed during my time as a graduate student at West Virginia University. As will soon become apparent, this collection of research topics is quite eclectic. This is, in part, due to the to the nature of the research process itself--where one often begins by asking one question and ends by answering a completely different one--but also due to the fact that my time at West Virginia University has provided me the opportunity to gain insight into a wide variety of economic fields as well as work on a variety of interesting and exciting projects. In any case, it is my hope that the diversity of topics will not overly impair the reader’s enjoyment of what I believe to be otherwise interesting explorations of timely research questions. Chapter 1 presents research examining the connection between socioeconomic status and obesity in the United States. Though this relationship has been firmly established in the literature, little attention has been paid to what effect a changein socioeconomic status has on obesity prevalence. As part of the “American Dream” is socioeconomic mobility, it remains an interesting and, to date, little examined research question: what impact does a change in socioeconomic status have on an individual’s obesity? Analysis conducted utilizing a confidential, geo-coded and nationally-representative sample of individuals from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth suggest that individuals who move from a lower to a higher socioeconomic group are less likely to be obese. This suggests that upward socioeconomic movement has multiple, positive effects that manifest in better health outcomes. In Chapter 2 we shift away from health outcomes research and instead examine a public economics question related to municipal government formation and property values, namely: what impact does municipal incorporation—that is, new city formation—have on residential property values? Though the literature contains several examples of research examining the effect of special municipal districts on property values—such as home owner’s associations and school districts—very little research exists examining the effect of new city formation on property values. Analysis conducted on four new cities in Riverside County, California using fifteen years of housing transactions data suggests that, in contrast to previous research, municipal incorporation did not result in an increase in housing values. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the potential regional factors contributing to this interesting result. Chapter 3 circles back to health economics research by examining another ongoing public health crisis in the United States: the opioid epidemic. The State of West Virginia has the highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the nation, with opioid overdose deaths accounting for the overwhelming majority of overdose deaths in the state. Thus, it is unsurprising that West Virginia and the greater Appalachian area in general, are generally considered to be “ground zero” of the national opioid epidemic. That said, previous research examining this complex issue has utilized aggregated death certificate data that inherently precludes an individual-level component to any econometric analysis. The analysis presented in this chapter, however, is based on confidential, individual-level death certificate data obtained from the state of West Virginia and represents the first analysis conducted at the individual level. This micro-level data allows for the examination of both the individual and sub-county local characteristics associated with opioid overdose deaths across the state. Analysis of these West Virginian death certificates suggests that individual employment in certain industries—such as coal mining and construction—is associated with a higher risk of opioid overdose death. Results also suggest that medication diversion across several different medical professions is potentially contributing to opioid deaths in those industries. Further, a spatial analysis of the effect of industry-specific employment growth across zip codes generates results suggesting that the effect of local employment growth on opioid overdose deaths varies both across industries and space. The chapter concludes with some brief comments and discussion of potential policy implications.

This dissertation explores empirical issues concerning public libraries in the United States. In particular, it analyzes the direct and indirect effects to and from public libraries, on different issues such as charitable donations, labor market outcomes, institutions and technical efficiency. Chapter 1 discusses the economics of public libraries and its relevance. In addition, it provides an outline of the dissertation and its main contribution to the literature. Chapter 2, analyzes the determinants of donations to public libraries testing the crowding effect from government funding of public libraries. I find suggestive results of a crowd in effect with an inverted U shape in all levels of government. In other words, additional government dollars increase private donations to public libraries at a decreasing rate. Chapter 3 investigates the effect of public library programs and participation on unemployment and labor force participation in Appalachia. Using an instrumental variable approach, I show that neither adult nor children’s programs and participation affect local labor market outcomes. These results are robust across different specifications. Chapter 4 explores the institutional determinants of public library technical efficiency in West Virginia. The analysis is carried out in two steps. First, I document considerable cross-district variation in library efficiency. Then, I estimate the effect of institutional characteristics on the technical efficiency measures. I find consistent evidence that urban libraries are more inefficient than county and multi-jurisdictional libraries. In addition, I find revenue from local sources is associated with reduced efficiency, contrary to what would be predicted by local public goods producer theory. Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation by summarizing its main findings and discussing possible implications.

The valuation of small fishing lakes is a vital component in understanding the importance of fishing and of recreational resources, in general. Knowing the values associated with such lakes is essential when prioritizing management activities. The overall value of a lake as a resource for human benefit is estimated as the summation of both instrumental and non-instrumental values. Instrumental values consist of economic and utilitarian values, as well as the values that a lake provides from ecosystem services. Non-instrumental values consider what the lake is worth as a good of its own, such as aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values gained by people because of the lake’s existence. In South Dakota, limited information of the economic and social values associated with small fishing and recreational lakes across the state has been collected. Many economic and social value studies have taken place on relatively larger lakes and reservoirs in the state; however, there is an abundance of small lakes that have yet to receive such research attention. With over 400 small lakes under state management, over time, many of these lakes will require costly renovation projects, such as dam repair, dredging, maintenance and replacement of docks and boat ramps, creation of fishing access, and general fisheries population management. Angler usage and economic information of the contributions of fishing and other water-related recreation at particular lakes of interest can help prioritize these expensive renovation projects. Moreover, the non-market values that local residents place on these lakes can be just as valuable to decision-making processes as the associated economic information. When combined, the information gathered from these lakes will contribute to better economic and social value estimates of similar lakes across South Dakota, and even across the United States. The economic evaluation of small recreational lakes also provides more precise measurements of recreational value when conjoined with already existing valuation data from relatively larger and higher use lakes. While currently published economic information has been useful in influencing management and policy decisions, the process in which data have been collected has not provided an accurate representation of the economic activity resulting from small fisheries within a region. Several other studies in South Dakota have targeted larger, more impactful fisheries resources for economic analyses; however, the economic value of the fishing industry becomes even more substantial with the addition of over 400 small lakes across the state. With few nearby opportunities for anglers to fish at larger lakes and reservoirs, the importance of quality fishing opportunities at nearby small fisheries could be sizeable, meaning that the collective economic value of these fisheries may be quite considerable. Recognizing the lack of information on this topic, I initiated this study to better understand the share that small fisheries have in the overall economic activity related to the fishing industry in South Dakota. For my first goal, the economic activity of seven small, South Dakota fishing lakes was estimated by using the expenditures during angling trips to these individual lakes in 2016. In particular, I wanted to: (1) estimate angler use, (2) estimate the extent of the total economic activity (TEA) associated with small fisheries, and (3) provide economic and use information that may be important to managers in determining future management priorities. The economic activity associated with angling visits to seven small fisheries in South Dakota was estimated using IMPLAN software. The average economic activity associated with fishing individual lakes in 2016 was $35,369/lake, supporting an average of 0.48 jobs and creating $5,572 in tax revenue. I observed that lakes with the highest proportion of ice fishing pressure also had the greatest associated economic activity, even though several of these had the lowest overall fishing pressure throughout the year. In addition to economic activity, zone of influence for each lake was estimated and compared with the proximity to urban centers. The inclusion of economic information from small fisheries may play an important role in influencing key strategic planning efforts by management agencies and in estimating the overall economic importance of angling on broader scales. Further, this study provides evidence of the importance of community events, such as fishing tournaments, in increasing the TEA of a small fishery and that these small fishing lakes are important assets to local communities. This study also indicated that special management strategies, such as the stocking of a catchable-size popular sportfish, can generate excitement around a fishery that may increase its use and economic activity. While collecting the monetary value on a resource seems to be the most popular method for determining how important a resource is to a region, perhaps the value of inland fisheries transcends economic statistics. Inland fisheries can also serve a crucial non-monetary role in contributing to the overall well-being of individuals by providing opportunities to form connections between humans and nature. Freshwater fisheries provide a wide array of ecosystem services that are important to individuals, society, and the environment, which include: food security, economic security, empowerment, cultural services, recreational services, human health and well-being, knowledge transfer and capacity building, ecosystem function and biodiversity, aquatic “canaries,” and “green” food opportunities. The ability to understand these non-market values, and the extent to which they contribute to the overall value provided by a small lake is a critical component in any decision-making process pertaining to management activities and priorities, as well as when deciding additional stakeholders that are necessary to include in these processes. For my second goal, I determined the importance of small fishing lakes to the overall quality of life of residents living in nearby communities in South Dakota. My objectives were to (1) measure the recreational activities and other uses provided to residents by lakes near their local communities, (2) measure the attitudes and values of residents towards the lakes that are near their communities, and (3) determine the uses, respondent characteristics, and attitudes towards these lakes that are best at predicting the importance of the lakes to local residents’ overall quality of life living in their communities. I used multiple linear regression analysis to identify that the most important predictors to lakes’ importance to local residents’ quality of life were: “lake is an important community resource,” “lake is a place I enjoy visiting,” “the number of different activities participated in at lake,” and “the lake is important to local businesses.” These 4 predictors were positively related to the contribution of lakes to residents’ quality of life. My findings provide empirical evidence for the desire to incorporate community participation and economic growth objectives into management plans for local lake resources. Realizing the diversity of recreation and leisure opportunities that lakes and adjacent lands can provide may be a simple, but critical, step in increasing economic opportunity for local regions and for providing a place for communities to hold events and ceremonies. Managers of these resources may find that agency-community collaboration, and careful co-management, can provide positive outcomes in the form of increased satisfaction among users and local communities, as well as increased overall use of the resources. Not only do these lakes contribute to economic value through angling opportunities, they also contribute in the form of non-market social values, such as increased community involvement, expanded recreational opportunities, and a greater overall quality of life. Managers of small recreational lakes must select appropriate survey methodologies in order to collect precise, accurate, and unbiased information from their constituents regarding the lakes’ economic and social valuations. Traditional survey approaches for gathering information from stakeholders have relied on on-site, mail, or telephone surveys. However, the ability to administer surveys quickly and with relatively low cost using the internet has become a popular method among managers and researchers. The rapid onset of internet surveys as a method for collecting angler information has provided limited time to assess the quality of the data being produced. For my third goal, I compared the quality of data collected using on-site, mail, and internet survey data from the 2016 fishing year. More specifically, my objective was to determine the ability of internet surveys to estimate fishing pressure at small South Dakota lakes (evaluated with data estimated using on-site surveys of fishing pressure). A secondary objective was to compare three metrics (age, gender ratios, and satisfaction of anglers’ fishing experiences) across survey methods to demonstrate how these metrics can vary across survey methods and sampling frames. Results indicate that angling pressure estimated from internet surveys were found to be 2.2 times greater than estimates from on-site surveys across all seven lakes; however, the proportion of angler days relative to the other lakes within the study were not significantly different between on-site and internet survey methods (p = 0.91). Internet surveys may have been subjected to recall error and nonresponse bias, which would likely cause a large multiplier effect during extrapolation. I also found that angler satisfaction on a scale from -3 to 3 was significantly different among on-site surveys (1.46 ± 0.07) and internet surveys (-0.04 ± 0.08). This is likely due to the interpretation of two different metrics based on the recency of the fishing experience that the anglers are being asked to rate. The mean age of internet survey respondents was significantly different (p < 0.001) than the age of mail survey respondents (49.6 ± 0.2 and 55.6 ± 0.7, respectively). Internet respondents may have been younger than mail survey respondents as a result of internet illiteracy, and lack of internet usage by older participants. The proportion of male respondents (vs. female) for each survey method were 94.1% (on-site), 65.0% (mail), and 88.3% (internet), which were all significantly different from each other (p < 0.001). The gender proportions also all differed from the distribution of anglers who had purchased a South Dakota fishing license in 2016 at 78.4% males and 21.6% females. Differences in gender ratios may have been caused by the topic of the survey being administered. As internet surveys become more prevalent, researchers and managers must use caution when considering these tools. Internet surveys are a relatively cheap and efficient method of collecting angler data when used properly. However, methods such as on-site and mail surveys should be considered in specific situations that evoke the biases and errors that are common with internet surveys, as described by this study.

This dissertation contains three distinct empirical chapters in applied energy and environmental economics. Each chapter focuses on a unique set of research questions, methods, and data. The unifying motivation therein concerns the development of renewable or alternative low-carbon energy sources as a policy response to the challenges of climate change mitigation, local and regional environmental quality issues, and energy security concerns. Economic and environmental evaluation of the energy policies coupled with understanding energy use patterns is of paramount importance. Together, the empirical chapters focus on demand, supply, and policy aspects of energy markets in the United States (US). First, Chapter 2 evaluates the impacts of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) on renewable electricity capacity. RPS is a state-level policy that requires electricity suppliers to include a certain proportion (or quantity) of renewable electricity in their total electricity sales over a specified time period. The chapter employs a fixed-effects panel regression model and a spatial econometric methodology using panel data spanning 47 states between 1990 and 2014. Thus, and importantly, the analyses incorporate salient spatial and temporal heterogeneities of RPS (i.e., varying RPS features across states and years). The results illustrate that the RPS has driven a 194 MW increase in overall renewable capacity (representing more than one third of the average electricity capacity developed between 1990 and 2014 in 47 states). The results also suggest that the impacts of RPS, while exhibiting spatial dependencies, vary depending on the renewable energy source. RPS positively impacts renewable electricity capacity, the share of renewable electricity capacity in total electricity capacity, as well as the shares of solar and wind capacity in total electricity capacity (the impacts become 1.3 times larger for solar and about two thirds fold larger for wind with reference to their average counterparts). However, the impacts of RPS are not statistically significant for biomass or geothermal resources. With the consistent patterns of the impacts of RPS across modeling scenarios, RPS adoption or lack thereof in different states, policy age, provision of renewable energy certificates (REC), and annually mandated obligations for renewable electricity in the overall electricity mix are among the critical factors which determine the efficacy of RPS. The positive impacts of RPS on solar and wind capacity are consistent with the relatively emphasized focus of RPS legislation across states which serves to prioritize these two renewable energy sources. Notwithstanding limitations in the available data (and the possibility that improvements in this respect over time would enable a more nuanced and higher-resolution investigation), the current findings provide guidance on how RPS is performing. The significantly positive impact of flexible REC provisions (allowing REC to be generated in any state), coupled with spatial spillover effects indicate the interstate marketing possibilities of renewable energy (and energy credits). The results (with respect to the significant contribution of different RPS attributes) suggest that the critical role the state level policies can make to meet national level goals about climate change and energy mix. More specifically, the results imply that scaling up RPS proliferation across the states (guided by policy treatment effects, coupled with spatial dependencies of both the RPS and renewable electricity) and specifying RPS mandates by renewable energy sources (guided by significantly positive impacts for solar and wind), at least up to the point where renewable energy sector obtains efficiency gains (economies of scales and allocative efficiency) or to the situation where better alternative to the RPS becomes available (e.g., market based carbon pricing policy, which can be least-cost carbon mitigation mechanism), can play an important role in generating transformative advances in renewable electricity sector. Next, Chapter 3 reports on an economic and environmental assessment to determine the optimal manure management strategy for large dairies. More specifically, a cost-benefit analysis and a life cycle assessment are carried out based on publicly available secondary data, motivated by the fact that improper management of dairy manure can result in adverse environmental and public health impacts. The results illustrate the comparatively high economic and environmental benefits associated with an integrated framework of bioenergy production as an alternative approach to manure management. Analyses are conducted under several scenarios (exploring the potential market for nutrients and greenhouse gases), all of which confirm that co-producing bioenergy in this context is more profitable than traditional on-site management approaches. The results imply that the livestock sector can maximize economic and environmental gains by integrating nutrient recovery and bioenergy production in alternative manure management considerations (rather than simply considering dairy manure as a waste disposal problem). The final empirical investigation, Chapter 4, explores the temporal and spatial variation of sectoral natural gas demand in the US. A fixed-effects panel regression model is configured to analyze monthly data between 2001 and 2015. The results demonstrate the inelastic price responses at state, regional, and national levels across natural gas consumption sectors in the US, reflecting the importance of natural gas in contemporary energy systems. The implication is that price based policies, such as energy efficiency standards or energy saving targets in building codes, in the natural gas sector may not be effective (but, since the magnitudes of price elasticity vary across economic sectors, states and regions, efficacy of such price based policies will vary across these different dimensions). On the other hand, the inelastic price responses may reveal resiliency (i.e., stable market) of natural gas market to the changes in natural gas prices that may be driven by policy changes in other segment of the energy market (e.g., renewable energy supporting policies may increase natural gas prices). The resulting implication can be that natural gas that holds critical significance in the contemporary energy system from both environmental and economic perspectives can also serve as a transition fuel. The statistically significant weather impacts in terms of heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD) revealed in this analysis are consistent with the extant energy demand literature, where higher HDD stimulates greater consumption of natural gas in the residential sector while CDD appears to increase natural gas consumption for electricity production. The impacts with regard to weather attributes (HDD and CDD) also help to design informed policies to achieve various energy management goals (e.g., attaining energy efficiency or promoting alternative clean energy by quantifying the repercussions of changes in consumers’ responses to natural gas demand across climatic seasons in the energy market stability). Collectively, these empirical chapters offer novel and important implications concerning energy market structures (supply and demand aspects), the environmental and economic assessment for renewable energy production potentials, and the policy responses, which have been or should be designed, to ensure the multi-dimensional sustainability of complex energy systems.

In the last 30 years, rice has become the number one food staple in Haiti, and rice imports have outpaced domestic production to supply the country’s increasing rice demand. Policy makers support the claim that increasing local rice supply will not only reduce the dependency on imported rice but also upheave the national economy. However, there is a lack of information on Haitian consumers’ preferences for rice to aid the development of the local rice supply chain. This research aims to bridge that gap by assessing Haitian consumer preferences and willingness to pay for selected rice quality characteristics. The results from a hypothetical choice experiment conducted in Haiti suggest that Haitian consumers value domestic rice more than imported rice but are indifferent about presence of broken rice in the sample. The information treatment about parboiled rice has a positive impact on consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP). As expected, WTP for parboiled rice is on average statistically greater among the respondents in the treatment group than for those in the control group. The results highlight the importance of developing marketing information about parboiled rice and the domestic origin of the rice sold in the market as a way to improve the competitiveness of domestic relative to imported rice. Although the results suggest that consumers are indifferent about the presence of broken rice in the sample, further quality assessments are needed to assess the role of certain rice quality attributes that can guide investment in more modern processing technologies.

This dissertation studies corruption and collusion with data derived from a laboratory experiment and household data. In Chapter 1 I study experimental procurement auctions with bribery and a public reserve to test for the tacitly collusive equilibrium described by Compte et al. (2005). Three sellers compete for 40 periods to sell a single item to a computerized buyer who accepts bribes and determines ties in bids and bribes randomly. In the closing periods, only 13.5% of auctions display the collusive equilibrium, but 58.7% of selling prices are noncompetitive. In comparison with simulated predictions for auctions that are corrupt but competitive, the mean selling price is 6.2% higher, efficiency is 35.2% lower, and the mean subject profit is 464% higher. Confusion leads to imperfect collusion, though some subjects learn to bid higher by observing bids. Men are more likely to bid the reserve. In Chapter 2 I present a method to detect corruption using only household data. I apply stochastic frontier (SF) analysis to measure the degree to which corrupt Chinese households underreport their income in comparison with other households, assuming the resultant differential is illegal income. Corrupt households on average underreport their income by 10%. I compare my results and method to those of Zhong (2018), who uses the same data but another method. Our results are similar, though only SF analysis 1) provides evidence of statistical significance, and 2) addresses endogeneity. My method provides an easy way to quantify the relative corruption between groups, regions, and countries. In Chapter 3 I apply the method of Chapter 2 to an Indonesian dataset. I find that the true incomes of public-sector households are, on average, about 50% higher than their reported income. I then divide the sample to support the findings of Martinez-Bravo et al. (2017), who exploit the fact that district mayors of the Suharto regime could finish their terms during the democratic transition, leading to exogenous variation in corruption exposure. When I restrict my sample to shorter-exposed districts, my measurement falls to 37.1%; when I restrict my sample to longer-exposed districts, my measurement rises to 56.2%.

This dissertation seeks to develop the subject of local public finance in a manner consistent with the political economy of local governments. For ease of description, each essay will be discussed briefly. The first essay is titled "The Provision of Generalized Local Public Goods Financed by Distortionary Taxation." This essay models the provision of a local public good that is simultaneously utilized as a public consumption good and a public intermediate good. Since the public good can simultaneously enter both utility and production functions, it is considered a "generalized public good." This is done to model the provision of infrastructure by sub-federal governments, which is financed with taxes on local residents. A theoretical analysis provides a cost-benefit rule for public good provision by a rent-maximizing local government facing mobile households. Illustrative calculations of the marginal cost of public funds are provided. Calibrated to U.S. data, the role of intergovernmental transfers on the provision of infrastructure by rent-maximizing local governments is analyzed. Theoretical evidence of the higher responsiveness of local governments to matching grants relative to lump-sum grants is provided. The second essay is titled "The Impact of Local Households' Housing Tenure on Local Public Debt Levels." This essay investigates the relation between local housing tenure and local public debt. It does this by establishing housing tenure as a theoretical basis for the potential differences in how households view public debt. Homeowners capitalize the burden of local public debt into their home value, while renters do not. A hypothesis is generated that an increase in the renter share of households in a locality leads to higher levels of local public debt, all else equal. Using an instrumental variable approach, the empirical evaluation shows an increase in the proportion of renters leads to higher levels of public debt in a panel data set of U.S. local governments. Specifically, a one percentage point increase in the percent of renters increases unfunded public debt per household by $400, or about 7% of the average local debt level, and 24% of the county with the median debt level. This relationship is robust across multiple specifications. The third essay is titled "A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Local Households' Housing Tenure on Local Public Debt Levels: Implications for Federalism." This essay extends the model of the second essay by measuring the spatial spillovers using a spatial autoregressive model with autoregressive disturbances. The existence and magnitude of local government spillovers related to local public debt levels are used to inform policy makers at higher levels of government. The analysis identifies possible geographic segmentation of the municipal bond markets and the role of special district debt as a key component of the spatial distribution of local public debt. Additionally, a positive spatial disturbance is found.

My dissertation consists of three essays on U.S. regional economics. The aim of the research is to understand the variations in economic outcomes across regions and how those persistent differences can be reduced. In particular, I study the geographic patterns and the determinants of internal migration, and examine the development of social capital. In the first chapter, I document U.S. internal migration between the period from 1960-2000 using a newly collected data set. I find that the recent decline in migration is driven by lower migration across states, while within state migration has increased during the observed periods. To explain this, I use a gravity framework and estimate the effect of state borders on migration flows. I find that the border effect is strongly significant, and within state migration is 3.2 times higher than across state migration. Furthermore, the border effect has increased from 2.7 in 1960 to 3.6 in 2000. I show that the differences in social and economic characteristics between areas contribute to a larger state border effect, and the increase of the border effect over time is associated with the rising differences in house prices as states implement more restrictive land use regulations. I find that this is due to lower in-migration in states that are highly regulated in land uses. For high income destinations, the rise in regulations can explain all of the increase in the border effect. In the second chapter, I examine the effect of political differences on migration decisions and provide empirical evidences of partisan geographic sorting among American migrants. Using presidential election returns and the same migration data for the period from 1960-2000, I show that political differences between areas decrease migration, as Americans prefer to live in areas with similar ideology and political views. I find that there are a lower number of migrants between places that supported different political parties, and migration flows decrease as differences in vote shares increase. In addition, I do not find evidence that Americans are increasingly sorting by partisanship over time, which is previously known in the literature as the “big sort” hypothesis. The last chapter studies the level of social trust across regions in the United States, and how it arises using natural disasters as exogenous shocks between 1973 and 2010. Every year, the United States is hit by natural disasters that take away lives and cause property damage. In the event of a natural disaster, the victims are more likely to have increased interaction with others. If the experience of increased social interaction is positive, this can positively affect the level of social trust. To test this, I combine two U.S. survey data sets with the natural disaster data, and find that the individuals who have recently experienced natural disasters are more likely to have higher level of trust. One standard deviation increase in natural disasters is associated with an increase of 0.014 standard deviations in trust. I also provide evidence of positive social experiences by showing that natural disasters are associated with an increase in cooperation with neighbors.

This dissertation examines the effects of federal government activities on local economies. Three research questions are addressed: How do federal environmental regulations influence local economic growth?, What regional factors influence the spatial distribution of federal conservation programs?, and How does location-based federal funding effect economic resilience within the targeted region? Regional economic analysis, spatial analysis, and spatial econometric techniques are implemented to answer these questions. The first essay examines the effects of the air pollution standards on county level economic growth. The results illustrate, in the long run, the impacted regions have adapted to the changes in the pollution standards. To meet these abatement standards, regions are becoming less dependent upon the manufacturing industry and other polluting industries, and diversifying their industry portfolio. The second essay identifies regional determinants of participation in federal conservation programs in West Virginia. These results indicate that Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is strategically targeting areas to promote efficient farm management techniques and to protect stream water quality. Access to information and nearby resources, such as an NRCS field office, also has a significant effect on conservation practice adoption. The third essay evaluates the significance of Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) project investments on local economic resilience. Our analysis also evaluates characteristics to identify local or regional policy strategies to further promote resilience throughout the Appalachian region. ARC project investments are positively related to economic resilience and are most beneficial as a regional cooperative policy strategy approach.

Ghana’s desire to achieve sustainable economic growth with relatively stable price level pursue both monetary and fiscal policies that could lead to macroeconomic. This study examines the effects of fiscal and monetary policy on economic growth and determine the level of convergence of growth for Ghana using structural equation modeling (SEM) using time series data from 2008 to 2017. Both short run and long-run results revealed that the ratio of government spending to private investment was statistically significant and it exerted a positive impact on economic growth, an indication that government expenditure is a key channel through which we can achieve sustained economic growth. It was also revealed that real interest rate which is a monetary policy tool have a negative effect on economic growth in Ghana. The impulse response of government spending on investment shows that government spending shocks decreases investment in Ghana, which results in crowding out of investment. The results of the Granger-Causality test suggested there is bi-directional causality between economic growth and real interest rate. To achieve higher and sustainable economic growth, government should embark on expansionary fiscal policies. Further, the central bank of Ghana must reduce lending rates so that firms and business sector can borrow at low rates to enhance growth and development of the economy.

This dissertation examines spatial and temporal impacts of natural resource use. The second chapter integrates hydrological and economic systems to examine the impact of drought on these two systems and explores the spatial impact of policies aimed to mitigate the drought impact. The systems dynamics model developed for this chapter simultaneously considers the physical hydrology in the Middle Rio Grande water basin in New Mexico, the engineered water management system, and a behavioral model of residential water demand for three cities: Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The simulation results showed that droughts that occur in later periods, when there are larger populations, have more substantial impacts. Later and longer drought increases per capita water consumption, reduces aquifer volume, and in general reduces river flow. However, increased public awareness can outweigh the stress on water resources due to population growth. Furthermore, increased awareness and decreased population in one city results in to decreased groundwater pumping costs in another city. The third chapter utilizes survey-based contingent evaluation data to investigate public support among urban Albuquerque, NM households for restoration of a watershed that impacts the urban water supply security, but is spatially removed from the urban area. Econometric results show evidence of both significant public support for forest restoration and the importance of accounting for respondent uncertainty. Econometric estimation results indicate that even if people live in a distant area they are willing to pay for forest restoration. The fourth chapter examines the tradeoff between natural resource development and ecosystem services. The model developed in this chapter is within the system dynamics framework but integrates spatial information too. A hypothetical example is undertaken for the Piceance Basin in Colorado that simultaneously estimates the economic benefits from unconventional natural gas production and the impacts of this land use change on the collocated Mule Deer and fish population and competing direct and consumptive uses of nearby water supplies. Simulation results show that mineral development simultaneously produces private benefit through the sale of produced mineral and social cost through the degraded ecological services. Price uncertainty further aggravates the problem.

This paper uses annual, tract-level data to estimate the economic impact of the Seattle area’s newly operational light rail system and recently implemented toll on a bridge traversing Lake Washington, the large lake immediately east of Seattle that bisects the region. Two modeling approaches are utilized in the estimation of each transit intervention’s economic impact: the primary model allows the transit intervention to affect the designated impact area prior to the system’s operation, under the assumption that individuals will respond to the knowledge of the change and relocate accordingly. The secondary model accounts for an impact from the intervention upon its operation. Zoning designations are incorporated into the measurement of a tract’s proximity to the transit interventions to control for the possibility of the expansion of a residential or commercial presence. The economic impact from the light rail and toll are modeled both individually and in a combined model. The impact of the light rail is measured within a ¼ mile of stations. Two station types are controlled for within the estimation of the light rail system’s economic impact: retrofit stations previously existed as bus stations that were fit with light rail infrastructure, while new stations were built specifically for the light rail. Both station types are associated with increases in population density and housing density, and decreases in employment density, while the prevalence of public sector employment has decreased around new stations. The two station types differently attract residents based on age. A majority of the increases in population and housing density surrounding stations occurred prior to the system’s operation, whereas a majority of the decrease in employment density surrounding stations occurred during the system’s first year of operation. Narrow and broad definitions of bridge proximity are utilized in estimating the toll’s impact. The toll is associated with small increases in population density and employment density using both definitions of bridge proximity. Within the narrow definition of bridge proximity, a majority of the increase in population density occurred prior to the toll’s operation, whereas a majority of the increase in employment density occurred during the toll’s first year of operation. Within the broad definition of bridge proximity, a majority of the increases in population and employment density occurred once the toll was operational. Neither transit intervention has affected the prevalence of African Americans within the designated transit impact areas.

This dissertation studies the effects of external integration and internal liberalization on the economic geography within a country when regions within the country have different access to the world market. The first paper introduces internal geography into the Melitz (2003) model to examine how external and internal liberalizations affect the economic geography within a country. By dividing a country into a coastal region and an inland region, the model shows that trade leads the coastal region have a higher than proportional share of industry, and causes firms in the coastal region to be larger and more productive than firms in the inland region. Both external and internal liberalizations encourage industry agglomeration in the coastal region. However, external trade liberalization leads to firm divergence, and internal liberalization leads to firm convergence, between coastal and inland regions. This allows me to test the relative importance of internal and external liberalization. Using Chinese data from 1998 to 2007, I find that the manufacturing sector grew faster in the coastal region than in the inland region after the WTO accession in 2001. Firms also converged between coastal and inland regions, indicating that internal liberalization had stronger effects during this period. In the second paper, I document large economic discontinuities across the east/non-east provincial borders in China and argue that the border effects are largely due to preferential policies that give the east advantages in international trade and economic development. Using counties contiguous to the borders of 4 plain provinces, I find that manufacturing activities (output, employment, and export) increase abruptly from the west to the east of the borders. The counties in the east also have a lower share of agricultural population and a higher share of output by foreign firms. The economic discontinuities are larger for non-state sectors than for the state sector and are stronger in non-mountain regions than in mountain regions. The large economic discontinuities are unlikely to be explained by geographic and cultural differences across the borders, and can be accounted for by the policy differences between east and non-east provinces. I find that the openness level and the index of market liberalization can account for a large part of the east/non-east divide. In the third paper, I use the ending of the Multi-fiber Arrangement (MFA) to study the effects of an external trade liberalization on Chinese textile and clothing industry. After the Multi-fiber Arrangement ended in 2005, Chinese textile and clothing exports in products that faced quotas before experienced significant boom. The effects are stronger in the coastal region than in the inland region. Using distance to the seaport as a measure of world-market access, I show that the external trade liberalization (the quota removal) had larger effects on regions with better access to the world market. A further analysis of firm entry shows that the large adjustment of export after the expiration of the MFA was largely due to destination and product expansions by existing firms.