Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6984-6712

Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design

Department

Division of Resource Economics & Management

Committee Chair

Heather Stephens

Committee Member

Alan Collins

Committee Member

Levan Elbakidze

Committee Member

Brad Humphreys

Abstract

Air pollution impacts economic activity, and economic activity creates air pollution. Understanding this endogenous nexus is critical as any policy designed to affect one will inevitably affect the other. My research explores both sides of this nexus. Specifically, I identify the economic effects from the implementation of an international climate agreement (the Kyoto Protocol); I determine the impact of air pollution on physical productivity and determine which pollutants are responsible for this effect; and I link urban form to vehicular emissions via the structure of road networks.

The first chapter of this dissertation studies the impact of the Kyoto Protocol on the cement manufacturing industry. The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement signed in 1997 to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and mitigate the consequences of global climate change. Early studies of the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol have attributed it to approximately a 7-10\% reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions compared to a ``business as usual'' outcome. Given the carbon intensity of cement manufacturing, I examine the impact of the Kyoto Protocol on cement manufacturing output and carbon dioxide emissions. Using an instrumental variables difference-in-differences approach, I find that nations with binding emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol saw a 5\% reduction in both cement manufacturing and carbon dioxide emissions from cement manufacturing compared to other nations. Based on the relative magnitude of these effects, it appears that the Kyoto Protocol may have led to technological innovation in cement manufacturing. Using data on carbon intensities for cement manufacturing, I support this notion and find further evidence that it fostered diffusion of existing, cleaner technologies from relatively more developed nations during the first phase, and technical innovation by these nations during the second phase. By examining the effect on net cement imports, I do not find evidence that the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions resulted in carbon leakage. Using estimates of the social cost of carbon from the economics literature and the results from this paper, back of the envelope calculations suggest that the Kyoto Protocol had an economic gain of \$7.4 billion from the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from cement manufacturing alone.

The second chapter of this dissertation studies the impact of air pollution on ultramarathon performance. Air pollution is known to lower worker productivity in myriad settings. However, causal inference studies using reliable air pollution data to study the effect of air pollution on physical productivity in outdoor settings over periods of time comparable to a workday are sparse, especially using US data. Furthermore, studies identifying the specific pollutant(s) responsible for this effect are even less common. By using ultramarathon race performances as a measure of physical productivity and spatiotemporal variation in ambient pollution levels, I find that particulate matter (PM10) is the key pollutant responsible for decreasing consistent, metered physical productivity in outdoor settings. In addition to this, this chapter also extends the existing literature by suggesting a distinction in which pollutants affect physical productivity along an aerobic/anaerobic divide, thereby explaining part of the existing divide in the air pollution and physical productivity literature. I also provide the first evidence of gender-based differences in the effects of air pollution on physical productivity.

The third chapter of this dissertation studies the relationship between road network structure and air pollution. Transportation is one of the primary contributors to local pollution stocks and flows. Thus, I consider how the structure of local road networks and the accompanying vehicular emissions might affect pollution stocks and flows. I present a pollution stock and flow model building on the Fundamental Law of Road Congestion that considers the impact of road network structure, and use this to generate hypotheses for how the structure of road networks should affect pollution stocks and flows. The main avenues for these effects are via traffic congestion and the opportunity cost of driving. Using topological indices to describe the structure of road networks, I test these hypotheses via a Hausman-Taylor approach using a measure of urban form as an instrument to address the endogeneity of the network structure. I find evidence supporting the hypotheses that better connected road networks, i.e., those with fewer bottlenecks and which generally allow for more efficient traversal, lead to lower levels of pollution stocks and flows. I also find evidence that drivers adapt to more circuitous road networks with lower levels of driving. These mechanisms are confirmed by regressing measures of congestion and the opportunity cost of driving against the topological indices.

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