Essays in environmental economics
Creators: name: Strow, Rachel Lauren
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2024

description: This dissertation is composed of three chapters examining different topics in the field of Environmental Economics. Chapter 1 examines the effect of post-construction stormwater infrastructure, or best management practices (BMPs), on housing prices. Using a repeat-sales model, I analyze the effects of structural BMPs on housing prices in nine Maryland counties. I separate the functional benefits provided by stormwater infrastructure, particularly benefits from localized flood reduction, from the potential amenity or disamenity these BMPs offer nearby homes. To capture the amenity (disamenity) effect, I estimate the effect of proximity to different types of BMPs and examine the extensive and intensive effects of BMP installation. I estimate that houses that have at least one BMP built between sales sell for 1.2 percent more than houses that do not, and that each additional BMP yields an increase of 0.07 percent. Properties that are closer to BMPs benefit more than houses with BMPs farther away. The effects vary by the type of BMP, with most types contributing positively to housing values. To determine the value of localized flood protection from these structures, I control for whether the property is located inside a BMP’s drainage area. After separating BMPs by type, I find that houses inside a BMP’s drainage area sell for about 0.5 percent more than houses that are not. Though less robust, these results suggest that stormwater BMPs not only have amenity value but may also have value from their functional ability to provide protection from localized flooding. Chapter 2 examines the effects of individual and community flood risk on housing prices in coastal New Jersey counties following Hurricane Sandy. The results show a significant price premium on properties in the flood zone prior to the storm, with a larger effect for houses subject to additional hazards from coastal waves. After Hurricane Sandy, there is a significant price discount on flood zone properties, but still a net positive effect. The negative price effects from individual risk do not appear to be short-lived, persisting through at least the five years following the storm. In addition to a house’s individual risk, I define two continuous measures of community level flood risk: municipal risk, or the share of the municipality in the flood zone and urban risk, or the share of the municipality’s urban land in the flood zone. After removing parcels that were damaged in the storm, I find that houses in municipalities with ten percentage points more land in the flood zone sell for between 1 and 2 percent less. Properties in municipalities with larger shares of urban land in the flood zone do not have a statistically significant effect on prices. The apparent positive coefficients on location in the flood zone and on urban risk highlight the difficulty in controlling for coastal amenities. In Chapter 3, coauthored with Hilary Sigman, we examine the effects of China’s 2018 ban of post-consumer recoverable waste imports on municipal solid waste management in the US. Using affected exports before the ban to measure differential exposure, we find that the ban increased the amount of waste disposed in landfills but had at most a small effect on solid waste combustion. Exposure to the ban is associated with declines in post-consumer recycling activity. Over twenty percent of the displaced scrap paper was diverted to other importing countries, whereas plastic exports to other countries fell, perhaps because of the ban’s broader impact on recycling. The results are consistent with the waste havens hypothesis: restricting trade in post-consumer waste shifted environmental damage to the exporting country.