Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6792-8207

Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design

Department

Agricultural and Resource Economics

Committee Chair

Levan Elbakidze

Committee Co-Chair

Suhyun Jung

Committee Member

Alan R. Collins

Committee Member

Palak Suri

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three essays that investigate the environmental and regulatory dimensions of unconventional oil and gas (UOG) development and place-based policy in the United States. The research examines how energy production activities interact with water resource management, regulatory compliance behavior, and regional economic resilience. By integrating empirical modeling, quasi-experimental methods, and policy evaluation, the dissertation provides new insights into how environmental risks and economic tradeoffs are shaped by regulatory constraints, strategic behavior of regulated entities, and government interventions in extractive regions. Managing produced water from unconventional oil and gas (UOG) production is a growing environmental challenge, particularly as shale development expands globally. The first essay evaluates the operational and economic impacts of restricting produced water disposal in southwestern Pennsylvania, where concerns over injection wells and evaporation ponds are rising. I develop a regional mixed-integer programming model calibrated with data from 11,217 wells between 2015 and 2022. The model simulates industry response to three policy scenarios: banning evaporation ponds, banning injection wells, and banning both. Results show that these restrictions lead to some adjustments in operational strategies but do not significantly reduce gas production. Producers respond by adjusting completion timing and choice of wells to be completed based on wastewater production amount. Across scenarios, cumulative shale gas production declines by at most 3.22%, and net revenues fall by up to 5.61%. The produced water recycling rises by up to 6.43%, while freshwater use decreases by up to 0.27%. These findings suggest that targeted wastewater management regulations can promote environmental protection by increasing produced water recycling without severely compromising shale gas production or regional profitability. In the second essay, the dissertation investigates strategic noncompliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) by community water systems (CWSs) in response to industrial pollution from unconventional oil and gas (UOG) production. Using staggered difference-in-differences models, I exploit spatial and temporal variation in exposure to UOG development across the Marcellus shale region from 2000 to 2022. I document a significant increase in monitoring, reporting, and other (MRO) violations–particularly those related to UOG pollutants (UMRO)–following initial exposure to UOG production, while health-related (HR) violations remain unaffected. In the early phase of the fracking boom (2008–2014), UMRO violations rose by 52% (0.127 violations) per CWS per year, resulting in a cumulative increase of 930 violations across the region by 2022. The disproportionate rise in UMRO violations suggests that CWSs may have either reallocated limited resources toward meeting health standards or strategically violated less heavily penalized MRO requirements to avoid harsher sanctions for HR noncompliance. This pattern intensified following the EPA’s 2010 implementation of a point-based enforcement penalty system. My findings demonstrate how regulatory asymmetries can shape compliance behavior and underscore the need for enforcement designs that deter strategic underreporting of risks critical to public health. The third essay evaluates the socioeconomic impacts of the POWER (Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization) initiative, a federal place-based program aimed at revitalizing communities in the Appalachian region impacted by the decline of coal industry. Using matched difference-in-differences (DiD) estimators and a continuous treatment framework, I assess how POWER grants influenced local labor market and income dynamics between 2016 and 2023. My results show that POWER initiatives led to significant reductions in unemployment. Across various model specifications, the annual unemployed population declined by 4.19–11.21% per county. Aggregated over the treatment period, I estimate that POWER grants generate approximately 50,175 to 203,748 jobs, depending on matching models. While modest increases in labor force participation were observed, per capita income declined by 0.83–2.55%, likely because newly created jobs were relatively low-paying and did not fully offset the reduction in public assistance. Additionally, investment-oriented grants may have delayed effects on household income. These findings offer empirical insights into place-based economic interventions. My findings highlight that while job creation can be achieved in distressed regions, income gains may require more comprehensive or longer-term strategies, such as investments in higher-wage industries and human capital development.

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