College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Demand-Driven Climate Mitigation in the United States: Challenges and Opportunities to Reduce Carbon Footprints from Households and State-Level Actors(2022) Song, Kaihui; Baiocchi, Giovanni; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Subnational and non-governmental actors have great potential to push for bolder climate actions to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. A consistent and accurate quantification of their GHG emissions is an important prerequisite for the success of such efforts. Although an increasing number of subnational actors have developed their climate mitigation plans with medium- or long- term goals, whether these progressive commitments can yield effectiveness as planned still remains unclear. This dissertation research focuses on two large groups of climate mitigation actors in the U.S. – households and state-level actors – to improve the understanding of potential mitigation challenges and shed light on climate policies. This dissertation consists of three principle essays. The first essay reveals a key challenge of emission spillover among state-level collective mitigation efforts in the U.S. It quantifies consumption-based GHG emissions at the state level and analyzes emissions embodied in interstate and international trade. By analyzing major emission transfers between states from critical sectors, this essay proposed potential policy strategies for effective climate mitigation collaboration. The second essay addresses unequal household consumption and associated carbon footprints in the U.S., with a closer look at different contributions across income groups to the national peak-and-decline trend in the U.S. This analysis further analyzes changes in consumption patterns of detailed consumed products by income groups. The third essay proposed a framework to link people’s needs and behaviors to their consumption and associated carbon footprints. This framework, built on existing models that connect carbon footprints with consumer behaviors, extends to people’s needs with simulation over time. Such an extension provides a better understanding of carbon footprints driven by various needs in the context of real-world decision-making. Based on this framework, this essay selects a basket of behavioral changes driven by changing fundamental human needs and analyzes associated carbon footprints. The dissertation identifies opportunities and challenges in demand-driven climate mitigation in the U.S. Its findings provide implications for effective climate actions from state-level actors and households.Item THE WATER-ENERGY-LAND NEXUS OF BIOENERGY PRODUCTION IN BRAZIL(2020) Munoz Castillo, Raul; Sun, Laixiang; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Biofuels play a critical role in the Paris Agreement to help achieve climate change mitigation targets. However, a significant increase in production of biofuels might potentially be realized at the expense of overusing natural resources, particularly land and water. Understanding the tradeoffs between the development of biofuels and its impacts on land and water is a critical issue for sustainable development. This energy-water-land nexus might be particularly important for Brazil, given its position as top exporter and second top producer of bioenergy. Furthermore, Brazil itself has set up its own Intended Nationally Determined Contribution agenda with a significant growth of biofuel production by 2030. The aim of this research is to quantitatively characterize the nexus of biofuels production with the overall appropriation of land and water resources at the subnational level in Brazil by answering the following questions: (i) How will the implementation of international climate mitigation commitments adopted by Brazil impact water and land use and therefore water and land stress in Brazil?; (ii) what will be the geographical distribution of such impacts at subnational level? ; (iii) will increase competition among economic sectors aggravate such impacts?; and (iv) how will other socio-economic and physical drivers of change affect those impacts combined with INDC related policies implementation?. To answer these questions, I developed a set of socio-economic, policy and climate scenarios through an environmentally extended input-output approach that represents socio-economic activities in the 27 Brazilian states, allowing comparison of the resulting water and land demands among main competitive users under different scenarios. I also introduced the use of water scarcity and land stress as environmental impact indicators. My study confirms that to properly understand the impacts of biofuel production in Brazil on land and water and its “nexus”, the consideration of resource scarcity and its spatial variability are key to ensure sustainable planning of biofuel production. Moreover, I found that the mitigation policies committed by Brazil and its role as top global provider of biofuel will take a significant toll in both water and land consumption in the country, leading to increasing competition among food production, energy generation and human consumption, especially in the most vulnerable and already environmentally stressed states.Item Two Essays on Valuing Climate Amenities(2017) Caulkins, Martha Leigh; Cropper, Maureen; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Chapter 2: I value climate amenities by estimating a discrete location choice model for U.S. households. The utility of each metropolitan statistical area (MSA) depends on location-specific amenities, earnings opportunities, housing costs, and the cost of moving to the MSA from the household head’s birthplace. I use the estimated trade-off among wages, housing costs, and climate amenities to value changes in mean winter and summer temperatures. I find that households sort among MSAs as a result of heterogeneous tastes for winter and summer temperatures. Preferences for winter and summer temperatures are negatively correlated: households that prefer milder winters, on average, prefer cooler summers, and households that prefer colder winters prefer warmer summers. Households in the Midwest region, on average, have lower marginal willingness to pay to increase winter and reduce summer temperatures than households in the Pacific and South Atlantic census divisions. I use my results to value changes in winter and summer temperatures for the period 2020 to 2050 under the B1 (climate-friendly) and A2 (more extreme) climate scenarios. On average, households are willing to pay 1 percent of income to avoid the B1 scenario and 2.4 percent of income to avoid the A2 scenario. Chapter 3: I examine differences between the two principal approaches used to estimate the value of urban amenities: the hedonic model, in which amenities are capitalized into wages and housing prices, and the discrete model of household location choices, which is derived from a random utility framework. Several empirical studies have noted that the discrete choice approach can yield much larger estimates of amenity values than the hedonic approach. Using 2000 PUMS census data, I investigate these differences and their possible causes by estimating how U.S. households value various aspects of climate. I estimate both hedonic and discrete choice models, allowing for heterogeneity in tastes for mean winter and summer temperature. In line with the previous literature, I find that discrete choice models consistently yield mean marginal willingness to pay estimates for climate amenities that significantly exceed those implied by hedonic estimates. Additionally, I find that the household sorting patterns implied by the two models are very different. For example, the discrete choice model suggests that households with the greatest preference for warmer winter temperature tend to locate in cities with the mildest winters, while the hedonic models do not. I show that explanations for these differences advanced by the previous literature, such as differences in mobility assumptions between the two approaches, cannot fully explain my findings, and I suggest an alternative theory that deserve further investigation.Item ESSAYS IN ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE(2016) Zhou, Yichen; Cropper, Maureen L; Sweeting, Andrew T; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation studies technological change in the context of energy and environmental economics. Technology plays a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Chapter 1 estimates a structural model of the car industry that allows for endogenous product characteristics to investigate how gasoline taxes, R&D subsidies and competition affect fuel efficiency and vehicle prices in the medium-run, both through car-makers' decisions to adopt technologies and through their investments in knowledge capital. I use technology adoption and automotive patents data for 1986-2006 to estimate this model. I show that 92% of fuel efficiency improvements between 1986 and 2006 were driven by technology adoption, while the role of knowledge capital is largely to reduce the marginal production costs of fuel-efficient cars. A counterfactual predicts that an additional $1/gallon gasoline tax in 2006 would have increased the technology adoption rate, and raised average fuel efficiency by 0.47 miles/gallon, twice the annual fuel efficiency improvement in 2003-2006. An R&D subsidy that would reduce the marginal cost of knowledge capital by 25% in 2006 would have raised investment in knowledge capital. This subsidy would have raised fuel efficiency only by 0.06 miles/gallon in 2006, but would have increased variable profits by $2.3 billion over all firms that year. Passenger vehicle fuel economy standards in the United States will require substantial improvements in new vehicle fuel economy over the next decade. Economic theory suggests that vehicle manufacturers adopt greater fuel-saving technologies for vehicles with larger market size. Chapter 2 documents a strong connection between market size, measured by sales, and technology adoption. Using variation consumer demographics and purchasing pattern to account for the endogeneity of market size, we find that a 10 percent increase in market size raises vehicle fuel efficiency by 0.3 percent, as compared to a mean improvement of 1.4 percent per year over 1997-2013. Historically, fuel price and demographic-driven market size changes have had large effects on technology adoption. Furthermore, fuel taxes would induce firms to adopt fuel-saving technologies on their most efficient cars, thereby polarizing the fuel efficiency distribution of the new vehicle fleet.Item An Ex Post Evaluation of the U.S. Acid Rain Program(2014) Chan, Hei Sing; Cropper, Maureen; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Emissions trading programs have been recommended by economists and implemented by policy makers because they are expected to keep compliance costs low; but, studies on actual savings are limited. This paper is the first to conduct a comprehensive ex post analysis of the cost savings from the Acid Rain Program (ARP), the largest emissions trading program to be implemented in the U.S. In Chapter 2, I provide a brief overview of the Acid Rain Program. I then discuss other policies that are relevant to evaluating the ARP including the New Source Performance Standard and local emission standards. I conclude the chapter by analyzing the determinants of local emission standards and arguing that it is safe to treat these standards as exogenous. In Chapter 3 I illustrate the cost savings from a cap-and-trade system such as the ARP, and discuss factors affecting the potential gains from trade and the determinants. I then estimate a discrete choice model of coal procurement and scrubber installation to recover structural parameters of compliance cost functions at the generating unit level. Using the model I predict compliance choices under a uniform emission standard that yields the same aggregate emissions as the ARP. In Chapter 4, I estimate cost savings under the ARP to be about 265-380 million (1995 USD) per year. The numbers are much smaller than in previous literature (Carlson et al., 2000; Ellerman et al., 2000). I propose that lower transport costs reduced cost heterogeneity across generating units, and that improvements in scrubbing technology and state policies may have also contributed to a decrease in cost savings.Item The Elephant in the Road: An Economic Analysis of the Indian Car Market(2012) Chugh, Randy; Cropper, Maureen; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Chapter 1 To investigate how fuel economy is valued in the Indian car market, I compute the cost to Indian consumers of purchasing a more fuel-efficient vehicle and compare it to the benefit of lower fuel costs over the life of the vehicle. I estimate hedonic price functions for four market segments (petrol hatchbacks, diesel hatchbacks, petrol sedans, and diesel sedans) to compute 95% confidence intervals for the marginal cost to the consumer for an increase in fuel economy. I find that the associated present value of fuel savings falls within the 95% confidence interval for most specifications in all market segments for the years 2002 through 2006. Thus, I fail to consistently reject the hypothesis that consumers appropriately value fuel economy. Also, I look at vehicle models available in both petrol and diesel form (i.e., twins). Diesel vehicles are generally more expensive than their petrol twins, but, due to higher fuel economy and lower fuel price, have sufficiently lower fuel costs to more than offset the difference. Net savings from purchasing a diesel twin are substantial. Diesel hatchback owners save the equivalent of 50% of the purchase price of their chosen vehicle; diesel sedan owners save 18% of the purchase price of theirs. In 2006, 74% of twin hatchback owners and 59% of twin sedan owners realized these savings by buying the diesel twin. Due to their lower monthly driving distance, forgone savings by owners of petrol twins are lower, but still substantial. Petrol hatchback owners could have saved 24% of the purchase price of their chosen vehicle and petrol sedan owners could have saved 10%. Owners of petrol twins are apparently willing to forgo these substantial savings in order to drive their preferred vehicle. Chapter 2 The Indian car market is the fastest growing in the world. With increased mobility, however, has come increased foreign oil dependence, fuel consumption, and associated externalities. In response to this, the Indian government is contemplating fuel economy standards, but at the same time continues to subsidize diesel fuel. The result of this policy has been a diesel discount of 30%, relative to petrol, and \emph{dieselization}, the increasing market share of diesel cars. This chapter uses a model of vehicle choice and vehicle use to compare the welfare impacts of two possible policy responses: diesel fuel taxation and diesel vehicle taxation. Using data comprised of household-level vehicle purchase and driving distance observations from the 2006, 2008, and 2010 JD Power APEAL survey, I estimate a theoretically consistent model of discrete-continuous choice which explicitly accounts for unobserved household and vehicle characteristics and correlation between vehicle choice and driving distance. I find the effect of a diesel fuel tax that eliminates the petrol/diesel price gap to be 4.6 percentage point reduction of the market share of diesel cars based on results from 2006, a 7.9 percentage point reduction based on results from 2008, and an 8.6 percentage point reduction based on results from 2010. On average, a diesel car tax of 21.9% would achieve the same result. The diesel car tax option, however, does relatively little to change intensive margin incentives. A smaller diesel fuel tax, sufficient to yield the same total fuel conservation as the diesel car tax, compares favorably to both policies on efficiency grounds. While the subsidy eliminating diesel fuel tax is more efficient than the diesel car tax in terms of deadweight loss per liter of fuel conserved, the smaller diesel fuel tax actually results in a net welfare gain. This result comes from the fact that the pre-existing tax on petrol fuel raises enough revenue from those would-be diesel car buyers who are compelled to buy a petrol instead to more than compensate them back to their pre-tax utility levels. Comparing compensating variation of the subsidy eliminating diesel fuel tax to the diesel car tax, neither policy imposes a consumer welfare cost of more than 2% of new car buyers' average annual income. However, the welfare burden as a share of household income is found to be greater for the poorest households.Item THE IMPACT OF WATER QUALITY ON HEALTH IN RURAL CHINA(2011) Zhang, Jing; Hellerstein, Judith; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Providing people with safe drinking water is one of the most important health-related infrastructure programs in the world. This dissertation investigates the effects of a major water improvement program in rural China on the health of adults and children. Using panel data covering about 4,500 households from 1989 to 2006, I estimate the impact of introducing village-level access to water from water plants on various measures of health. Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation of the impact suggests a weak positive influence of the program on people's health status, but these results may be contaminated by endogenous timing and placement of the water quality interventions across China. To address potential endogeneity problems, I use topographic characteristics of communities as instruments for program placement, as these characteristics affect the costs of the construction of water plants and pipelines into villages. My instrumental variables (IV) results show that the introduction of treated plant water into villages has had a stronger impact on the health status of both adults and children. However, the IV strategy may result into overestimation due to some omitted variables. Combining both OLS and IV estimates, I find that the illness incidence of adults decreased by 11 to 50 percent and their weight-for-height increased by 0.835 to 2.580 kg/m following the program implementation. There was also an improvement in self-reports of health. Children's weight-for-height and height itself both rose, by 0.446 to 0.754 kg/m and 0.962 to 2.489 cm respectively, as a result of the program. Using a variety of robustness checks, I show that the results are not driven by measurement errors, omitted variable bias, or attrition bias, and that the mechanism by which the program was effective was via improved water quality rather than simply via increased access to water. No obvious heterogeneous treatment effects are found across income and educational groups.