The Ecological Impact of Place-Based Economic Policies

Does economic development have an unavoidable ecological cost? We examine the ecological impacts of one of India’s signature place-based economic policies involving massive tax benefits for new industrial and infrastructure development following the creation of the new state of Uttarakhand. The policy, which had an explicit pro-environment mandate, resulted in no meaningful change in local forest cover. Our results suggest that even in settings with low levels of enforcement, place-based economic policies with pro-environment mandates can achieve sizeable economic expansion without major ecological costs

THE ECOLOGICAL IMPACT OF TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

Abstract There is a long-standing debate over whether new roads unavoidably lead to environmental damage, especially forest loss, but causal identification has been elusive. Using multiple causal identification strategies, we study the construction of new rural roads to over 100,000 villages and the upgrading of 10,000 kilometers of national highways in India. The new rural roads had precisely zero effect on local deforestation. In contrast, the highway upgrades caused substantial forest loss, which appears to be driven by increased timber demand along the transportation corridors. In terms of forests, last mile connectivity had a negligible environmental cost, while expansion of major corridors had important environmental impacts

Can Social Protection Reduce Environmental Damages?

Why do damages from changes in environmental quality differ across and within countries? Causal investigation of this question has been challenging because differences may stem from heterogeneity in cumulative exposure or differences in socioeconomic factors such as income. We revisit the temperature-violence relationship and show that cash transfers attenuate one-half to two-thirds of the effects of higher same-day temperatures on homicides. Our results not only demonstrate causally that income can explain much of the heterogeneity in the marginal effects of higher temperatures, but also imply that social protection programs can help the poor adapt to rising temperatures

Temperature and Human Capital in India

We estimate the effects of temperature on human capital production in India. We show that high temperatures reduce math and reading test scores among school-age children. Agricultural income is one mechanism driving this relationship— hot days during the growing season reduce agricultural yields and test scores with comparatively modest effects of hot days in the nongrowing season. The roll-out of a workfare program, by providing a safety net for the poor, substantially weakens the link between temperature and test scores. Our results imply that absent social protection programs, higher temperatures will have large negative

(Not so) gently down the stream: River pollution and health in Indonesia

Waterborne diseases, often arising from freshwater pollution, are a leading cause of mortality in developing countries. However, data limitations inhibit our understanding of the extent of damage arising from freshwater pollution. We employ a novel hydrological approach combined with village census data to study the effect of upstream polluting behavior on downstream health in Indonesia. We find that upstream use of rivers for bathing and associated sanitary practices can explain as many as 7.5% of all diarrhea-related deaths annually. We also find suggestive evidence for differential avoidance behavior in response to different pollutants. Our approach relies on publicly available satellite data, open source hydrological models, and coarse village census data allowing us to estimate health externalities from river pollution in particularly vulnerable and data poor environments

Essays In Environmental And Development Economics

Even as concerns over climate change and environment have become dominant in political discourse, our understanding of the coupled dynamics of human and natural resource systems remains limited. Using a combination of computational, theoretical and econometric tools, and data from 11 countries, I present new knowledge and insights into how poor communities respond to food aid, the mechanics of environmental policy and the relationship between environmental quality and ecosystem health on human health. By showing the environment and human outcomes as intimately connected, this dissertation provides economic motivation for environmental conservation

Public Health Effects of Natural Resource Degradation: Evidence from Indonesia

Despite growing concern about the effect of environmental degradation on human health, little effort has been made to quantify the effect of ecosystem damage on public health indicators such as the incidence and burden of infectious diseases. Using village-level panel data and satellite data on forest cover, I find that the average within-sample deforestation results in a 2-4.5\% increase in the probability of malarial outbreak in each village in that district, translating to 360,000 - 880,000 additional infected individuals during the course of this study. The evidence is consistent with an ecological response and the effect of deforestation on malaria cannot be explained by post-deforestation land use change, anti-malarial programs or migration. The effect is specific to malaria, with deforestation having no discernible effect on other diseases (measles, respiratory infections, dengue and diarrhea) whose disease ecology differs from that of malaria. These large effects underscore that forest conservation can have local health benefits in addition to global carbon benefits