Click each entry (where applicable) for an abstract and/or paper replication materials. For papers, code or data not explicitly linked, please contact for more information.
Published papers
"Economic and environmental impacts of a proposed 'Carbon adder' on New York's energy market", with Gokce Akin-Olcum, Christoph Bohringer and Thomas Rutherford. 2021. Climate Policy.
Abstract: The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has developed a carbon-pricing proposal to reduce carbon intensive electricity generation in anticipation of future clean energy goals in the state. The proposed measure is a so-called 'carbon adder' on CO2 emissions from the power sector that targets the social cost of carbon amidst existing overlapping policies. The carbon adder is set as the difference between the targeted social cost of carbon and the prevailing RGGI price for CO2 emission allowances. We investigate the economic and environmental impacts from the imposition of a carbon adder on New York's power sector. Our analysis indicates that the carbon adder gives the 'right' price signal for New York's power generation to turn into a greener one and is shown to be more cost-effective than clean energy standards. Requirements for permit price floors in the RGGI market induces carbon permit retirements across RGGI states leading to small reductions in region- and country-wide emissions levels. The proposed border carbon adjustments on electricity trade are shown to further mitigate emission leakage.
Paper materials: coming soon..
"SAGE Model Documentation (v2.0.0)", with Alex Marten and Ann Wolverton. 2020.
Summary from SAGE website. "SAGE is a CGE model of the United States economy developed to aid in the analysis of environmental regulations and policies. It is an intertemporal model, resolved at the sub-national level. Each of the nine regions in the model, representing the nine census divisions, has five households reflective of national income quintiles. Each region has 23 representative firms, most of which are focused on the manufacturing and energy sectors that are often impacted by environmental policies. SAGE builds on the advice of the SAB's 2017 report, best practices in the economics literature, and the EPA's Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses (2010)."
"Tools for Open Source, Subnational CGE Modeling with an Illustrative Analysis of Carbon Leakage", with Thomas F. Rutherford. 2019. Journal of Global Economic Analysis.
Abstract: This paper introduces the Wisconsin National Data Consortium (WiNDC) framework for producing self-consistent accounts based on publicly available datasets that can be used in sub-national economic equilibrium analysis. We describe the process used to generate regional social accounting matrices and a calibrated static multi-regional, multi-sectoral computable general equilibrium model conformal with the constructed dataset. As illustration, we show how the core model can be applied for the analysis of energy-environment issues. We use an energy-economy extension of the core model to assess the effectiveness of several state level greenhouse gas mitigation proposals. Sub-national abatement measures result in carbon leakage -- mandated reductions in controlled areas may be vitiated by increased emissions in uncontrolled jurisdictions. Using a WiNDC-based model, we calculate leakage rates and show how these depend on the underlying trade model. Our calculations demonstrate the importance of both data and modeling assumptions for the simulation of policy experiments.
Paper materials: code and tutorial.
"SAGE Model Documentation (v1.2.0)", with Alex Marten and Ann Wolverton. 2019.
Previously released version.
"Discrimination in Ambient Air Pollution Monitoring?", with Corbett Grainger. 2019. AEA Papers and Proceedings.
Abstract: In the United States, ambient air quality is regulated through National Ambient Air Quality standards (NAAQS). Enforcement of these standards is delegated to state and sub-state regulators who are also tasked with designing their own monitoring networks for ambient pollution. Past work has found evidence consistent with strategic behavior: local regulators strategically avoid pollution hotspots when siting monitors. This paper assesses whether income and race have historically played a role in monitor siting decisions.
Paper materials: code and data.
"Distributional Impacts of Energy-Heat Cross-Subsidization", with Corbett Grainger and Fan Zhang. 2019. Energy Policy.
Abstract: Energy and heat cross-subsidies are common in developing and transitioning countries, but the distributional and efficiency impacts of these policies (and reform) are largely unknown. In Post-Soviet countries such as Belarus, revenues from an industrial tariff on electricity are used to cross-subsidize heating for households. We analyze the distributional impacts of cross-subsidy reform with both input output methods and a calibrated static computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with heterogeneous households based on a household consumption survey. On average, GDP gains of roughly a quarter of a percent are computed across model runs which reduce taxes and subsidies from cross-subsidization. Reducing household heating subsidy rates equally across income groups is found to be regressive. Poore households are overly-burdened due to higher heating expenditures while richer households enjoy gains from cheaper market prices for goods. The GDP gains are even larger when the tax rates are structured to create a distributionally-neutral reform.
Paper materials: model code.
"Mining and Community Economic Growth", with Steve Deller. 2012. The Review of Regional Studies.
Abstract: The rapid expansion of oil and gas extraction in large parts of the Marcellus fields in the Appalachian Basin and the Bakken fields in the Williston Basin of the Dakotas and Montana has reignited debate over the role of natural resource extraction as a rural economic growth strategy. While the popular media has focused on hydraulic fracturing and natural gas and oil production, there has been significant interest in silicon sand mining in western Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota. This frack sand is used in oil and gas hydraulic fracturing activity. In this study we explore the relationship between non-oil and gas mining (NAICS 212) activities and economic growth for nonmetropolitan U.S. counties for the period 2000 to 2007. We find robust results suggesting that non-oil and gas mining is associated with lower population growth, and a positive impact on per capita income, but has no impact on employment growth.
Paper materials: available upon request.
Working papers
"Do Regulators Strategically Avoid Pollution Hotspots when Siting Monitors? Evidence from Remote Sensing of Air Pollution", with Corbett Grainger and Wonjun Chang. Under review.
Abstract: Ambient air pollution monitors are used to track pollution, and the data are used in regulatory settings and research. We identify a principal-agent problem where the local regulator has an incentive to avoid siting monitors in polluted areas but the ability to do so is dampened in nonattainment counties. To test for strategic behavior, we employ satellite-derived pollution estimates to characterize pollution at non-monitored locations. Leveraging the discontinuity at the nonattainment threshold, we find evidence of avoidance by local regulators in attainment counties. Our results suggest that monitoring data in attainment counties systematically understates ambient pollution compared to nonattainment counties.
"Consumer Demand Estimation for Heterogeneous U.S. Households", with Ensieh Shojaeddini, Ann Wolverton and Alex Marten. Working Paper.
Abstract: The specification of the consumer demand system is important for estimating the economy-wide impacts of environmental regulation. In computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, household behavior is typically governed by a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) utility function, though it fails to realistically capture well-known patterns of consumer behavior. In addition, only a few CGE models econometrically estimate their own elasticities but are limited to a representative national level household. We empirically estimate a flexible consumer demand system for the U.S. economy and explore the sensitivity of estimates to regional and household income disaggregation. As part of this evaluation, we consider tradeoffs between different specifications with regards to complexity, regularity, the ability to capture cross-price elasticities, Engel curve flexibility, and the number of commodities that can be reasonably accommodated. We estimate price and income elasticities at the national level that are statistically significant and of the expected sign using a variety of empirical specifications. For the disaggregated results, we find that estimated elasticities are similar across U.S. Census regions but vary across income groups. Leisure is income elastic while other categories are income inelastic. Income-group and regional elasticity results are qualitatively similar to those at the national level, though magnitude varies by income group. All consumption categories and leisure are found to be price inelastic at the national level. Our estimated labor supply elasticities are within the expected range for price elasticities, though high for income elasticities. Finally, we test the regularity of the estimated demand system and find that the conditions are satisfied at the national level but not for all income groups and regions.
"Design of a Multi-modal Transportation System to Support the Urban Agglomeration Process", with Allister Loder, Kay Axhausen and Thomas Rutherford. Under review.
Abstract: Improvements to urban transportation systems are designed to reduce travel times, but can also facilitate additional productivity gains through agglomeration. These systems, however, are complex making it difficult to identify and quantify the mechanisms that improve economic productivity. In this paper, we propose a spatial economic equilibrium model that links transportation investment and pricing effects to economic productivity. The model integrates an equilibrium sorting model with a novel traffic flow modeling tool called the multi-modal macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD). The multi-modal MFD allows us to account for the physical interactions in urban transportation in capturing the economic effects of pricing and investment for the first time. We use the model to show how changes in the public transport system and ticket and variable car costs influence economic sorting and thus urban productivity in the Zurich area.
"How Does Exposure to Fine Particles and Ozone Affect Children's Health? Evidence from South Korea", with Moon Joon Kim, Ron Shadbegian, Young-Sook Eom. Under review.
Abstract: Children are more likely to be harmed by exposure to ambient pollution than adults due to their continuing physical development, small size, and high metabolism. Moreover, because children spend more time outdoors performing physical activities than adults, they can be particularly vulnerable to exposure to poor air quality. Estimating the causal relationship between elevated levels of ambient pollution and children's health, however, is complicated by sorting and averting behavior, underlying children's health, and family socioeconomic status. Here, we estimate the effect of fine particles (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) on daily outpatient visits or hospital admissions for respiratory related illnesses of children between the ages of 0 and 14 in South Korea. Hospitalization data are obtained from the National Health Insurance Service and include children's outpatient visits and hospital admissions for respiratory illnesses across South Korea in 2016. We estimate an instrumental variables model to control for classical measurement error in our air pollution exposure variable and averting behavior, both of which could bias our estimates. Ambient air quality is often dependent on the meteorological conditions, which allows us to use changes in wind velocity and sunlight duration to identify exogenous variation in PM2.5 and O3, respectively. We find significant negative relationships between cumulative exposure to fine particles and ozone on children's respiratory health. More specifically, based on a 7-day moving average exposure measure, a 1 microgram per meter cubed increase in PM2.5 and a 1 ppb increase in O3 led to an increase of approximately increase of 0.84% 2.22 and 1.85% 4.88 daily respiratory related hospital visits per metropolitan area, respectively. We, however, do not find any significant contemporaneous effects of exposure to higher levels of PM2.5 and O3 on children's respiratory health.
"Occupational Affiliation and Environmental Regulation", with Alex Marten and Ann Wolverton.
Details coming soon.
"Do Agricultural Pumping Restrictions Hold Water? General Equilibrium Cost Impacts of Regulated Groundwater Withdrawals"
Details coming soon.
Current projects
Household disaggregation of WiNDC
General equilibrium multipliers
Linking AOD with monitoring data in South Korea
IMPLAN vs. WiNDC
Water Energy Nexus
Updates to EPA's SAGE model
Non-peer reviewed work
"Using IMPLAN data in Applied General Equilibrium Analysis", with Thomas Rutherford. 2016. Technical Report.
"Urban Mode and Subscription Choice - An Application of the Three-Dimensional MFD", with Allister Loder and Kay Axhausen. 2016. 16th Swiss Transport Research Conference Proceedings.
"Distributional Impacts of Energy Cross-Subsidization in Transition Economies: Evidence from Belarus", with Corbett Grainger and Fan Zhang. 2015. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 7385.
"General Equilibrium Frameworks for Climate Risk Assessment with IMPLAN Data", with Thomas Rutherford. 2014. MCRSA Conference Proceedings.
"A Comprehensive Analysis of Seepage in Geostructures: What Temperature Data Can Tell Us", with Wonjun Chang, Jesse Holzer and Kitae Chang. 2014. Institute of Earth Reinforced, Kumoh National Institute of Technology.