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The pink tax refers to an alleged empirical regularity: that products targeted toward women are more expensive than similar products targeted toward men. This paper leverages a national dataset of grocery, convenience, and mass merchandiser sales, in combination with novel sources on product gender targeting, to provide systematic evi- dence on price disparities for personal care products targeted at different genders. The results are mixed: while women’s deodorant products are indeed more expensive, on the order of 6%, women’s disposable razors are about 8% less expensive. We then investigate potential drivers of differential pricing with a focus on deodorants. Analysis of wholesale prices indicates that differences in costs cannot fully explain the differences in deodorant retail prices that we document. Rather, our findings suggest that demand for women’s deodorant products is relatively inelastic. We also find a higher share of category TV advertising features women’s products. Finally, we consider the potential welfare effects of price parity regulations.

Coastal cities and their natural environments are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, especially sea-level rise (SLR). Hard coastal defences play a key role in protecting at-risk urban coastal populations from flooding and erosion, but coastal ecosystems also play important roles in the overall sustainability and resilience of cities and urban centres by contributing to coastal protection. Conserving coastal ecosystems and maximising their resilience will ensure that urban coastal communities can continue to benefit from ecosystem services and improve their adaptive capacity to cope with adverse impacts in the future. Using the hyper-urbanised coast of Singapore as a case study, we modelled the resilience of coastal wetlands to SLR and integrated resilience in conservation planning. We found that the responses of coastal habitats to rising sea level vary across the modelling periods. While there is a slight net gain in the extent of mangrove forests and tidal flats by the end of the century due to potential habitat conversion, the existing habitats will experience a loss in coverage. Highly modified coastlines associated with urbanisation impede the ability of existing wetlands to migrate landward, which is a key mechanism for coastal habitats to cope with rising sea levels. Systematic conservation planning can identify sites that are potentially resilient to SLR and incorporate factors that influence an ecosystem's capability to respond to change. Crucially, the relatively slow rates of SLR and persistence of coastal wetlands during the earlier half of this century present an opportunity to introduce management interventions aimed at enhancing ecosystem resilience. National Research Foundation (NRF) Published version This research is supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF), Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore, and the Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science under the NRF Australia-Singapore Joint Research Grant Call (NRF2018AU-SG02).

Coastal ecosystems provide a broad range of ecosystem services, which can be used to justify habitat conservation. The cultural ecosystem services of coastal ecosystems are generally underappreciated, and this is particularly the case when quantifying their scientific value. We created a tiered set of indicators to quantify scientific value spatially, and tested them using the case study of the island nation of Singapore. We conducted a systematic review of research papers, book chapters, conference reports and academic theses produced across 10 coastal ecosystems in Singapore, including mangroves, seagrasses, coral reefs, beaches and artificial coastal structures. At least 656 articles have been produced on Singapore’s coastal zone, with 2201 unique observations, showing that scientific value is spatially variable along Singapore’s coastline. Novel indicators such as the Site Impact Factor are able to differentiate scientific value between sites. This method has shed light on an under-recognised, but important cultural ecosystem service, and is applicable to other spatially-bounded coastal, marine and terrestrial landscapes.

The long debate on the optimal regulation of car services has been reinvigorated with the introduction of ride-hail regulation in major cities. Critics of the regulation have argued that regulation restricting car services like ride-hail and taxis are leaving passengers stranded. Instead, they argue that policymakers should focus their efforts in expanding transit to reduce car service usage. It is unclear whether this alternative policy proposal will work, because there is little evidence in the literature about the substitution patterns between any car service and transit. This paper uses the opening of the Second Avenue Subway in New York City in 2017 as a natural experiment to characterize substitution patterns from both taxis and ride-hail to transit. I use broad data that covers 74% of all car service trips in NYC. The data includes shared and private ride-hail from two competing platforms, Uber and Via. I find that the SAS caused trip volume to decrease by 13.3% total along the origin-destination pairs ("OD pairs") easily served by the subway. Decreases were more dramatic for shared trips, with UberPool trips decreasing by 49% and shared Via trips by 38%. I argue that the decreases in trip volume were driven by demand, rather than supply, platform actions, or search frictions.Finally, I provide suggestive evidence that these decreases resulted in a modest improvement in congestion in the affected OD pairs.