Research

Exploring transition processes in Germany with environmental data - Empirical essays on
international trade and the environment, regulation by information and spatial environmental data

Alexander Rohlf (Completion: March 2020)
Supervisors: Prof. Ulrich Wagner, Prof. Sebastian Findeisen, MADOC, University of Mannheim

When is the electric vehicle market self-sustaining? - Evidence from Norway

Nicolas Koch, Nolan Ritter, Alexander Rohlf, Francesco Scarazzato (2022)
Energy Economics, Energy Economics, Volume 110, 105991.

Abstract: This paper investigates whether the world’s most mature electric vehicle (EV) market in Norway has overcome critical mass constraints and can achieve sustainable long-term equilibria without subsidies. We estimate a structural model that allows for multiple equilibria emerging from the interdependence between EV demand and charging station supply. We first estimate the resulting indirect network effects using an instrumental variable approach. Then, we simulate long-term market outcomes for each of the 422 Norwegian municipalities. We find that almost 20% of all municipalities faced critical mass constraints in the earliest stage of the market. Half of them are effectively trapped in a zero-adoption equilibrium. However, in the maturing market, all municipalities have passed critical mass. Overall, about 60% of the Norwegian population now lives in municipalities with a high-adoption equilibrium, even if subsidies were removed. This suggests that critical mass constraints do no longer justify the provision of subsidies.

The effect of clean air on pharmaceutical expenditures

Alexander Rohlf, Felix Holub, Nicolas Koch, Nolan Ritter (2020)
Economics Letters, Volume 192, 109221.

Abstract: Airborne emissions are detrimental to health. Low emission zones (LEZs) that restrict pollution-intensive vehicles from entering are popular measures to curb local emissions such as particulate matter. We evaluate how LEZs impact defensive pharmaceutical expenditures. To this end, we use the complete medical histories of 2.7M individuals insured with Germany’s largest public health insurer AOK. We identify causal effects exploiting the quasi-experimental, staggered introduction of LEZs in 49 cities. We find that LEZs reduce annual pharmaceutical expenditures for heart and respiratory diseases by 15.8M€, representing a significant fraction of policy costs.

The Effect of Emission Information on Housing Prices: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register

Kathrine von Graevenitz, Daniel Roemer, Alexander Rohlf (2018)
Environmental and Resource Economics 69(1), p. 23-74.

Abstract: In this paper, we study whether the release of pollutant emission information has an effect on housing prices. The event under study is the publication of the first wave of emission quantity data from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register in 2009. Our analysis is based on quarterly housing prices at the German postal code level for the years 2007–2011 and provides the first evidence from Europe on this research question. Estimating a differences-in-differences model and controlling for observable differences in land use, housing type distribution, tax revenues and other postal code area characteristics by means of propensity score matching, we find no significant effect of the release of emission information on the value of houses in affected postal code areas. This result survives a number of robustness checks designed to assess whether our findings are due to data aggregation issues or the actual treatment definition. This leads to the conclusion that on an aggregate level the 2009 publication of E-PRTR data did not have an immediate and noticeable effect on housing prices in Germany.

Machine Learning from Big GPS Data about the Costs of Congestion

Nicolas Koch, Nolan Ritter, Alexander Rohlf, Ben Thies (2022)
Working Paper. Available upon request.

Climate Mitigation Benefits of high-speed rail in China depend on Carbon Prices

Liu Kai, Felix Creutzig, Alexander Rohlf, Ming Wang (2022)
Working Paper. Available upon request.

The Effects of Cash for Clunkers on Local Air Quality

Ines Helm, Nicolas Koch, Alexander Rohlf (2021)
Working Paper. Available upon request.

Killing Prescriptions Softly: Low Emission Zones and Child Health from Birth to School

Hannah Klauber, Felix Holub, Nicolas Koch, Nico Pestel, Nolan Ritter, Alexander Rohlf (2021)
IZA Working Paper.

Abstract: We examine the persistence of the impact of early-life exposure to air pollution on children's health from birth to school enrollment using administrative public health insurance records covering one third of all children in Germany. For identification, we exploit air quality improvements caused by the implementation of Low Emission Zones, a policy imposing driving restrictions on high-emission vehicles. Our results indicate that children exposed to cleaner air around birth require less medication for at least five years. The initially latent health response materializes only gradually in lower medication usage, leaving important but subtle health benefits undetected in common measures of infant health.

Did Globalization help Germany become cleaner? -
The effect of increasing Import/Export Exposure on local air pollution at the German county level

Alexander Rohlf (2020)
Working Paper. Presented at the EAERE 2017, the ECARES Seminar in Brussels (ULB) and the Bonn-Mannheim PhD Workshop 2017.

Abstract: I study whether the increase in trade relationships towards China and Eastern Europe is tied to reductions in local aerial pollutant concentrations in Germany by exploiting regional differences in trade and pollution exposure. The time frame under study covers the years 1998 to 2008 and coincides with China's admission to the WTO in 2001 and subsequent EU accession waves. I observe pollution concentration changes at the regional level for NO2, SO2 and PM10 and pair this data with changes in trade flows at the German county level over the same time period. The available measures of export and import exposure per worker allow for a regression model in long differences that resolves threats to identification through the use of exogenous variation in Chinese and Eastern European trade openness. I find positive effects of rising local import competition on environmental quality for NO2 and PM10 concentrations, which survive several robustness checks and are neither offset by the negligible pollution contributions of export opportunities towards China nor the minor increases in pollution levels caused by export scaling towards Eastern Europe. This yields a net reduction of 0.07μg/m³ in average concentration levels for NO2 and of 0.24μg/m³ for PM10 over the observation period as the emission impacts of export opportunities are small in comparison to the savings from trade-induced restructuring. These windfall effects of trade openness constitute an economically significant but minor fraction of the absolute reduction in both substances ( ∼ 3μg/m³) over the observed time frame.

Detecting Shifts in US Monetary Policy before the Financial Crisis of 2008 -
Taylor Rules, Breakpoint Tests and Narrative Evidence as Means of Evaluating US Monetary Policy

Alexander Rohlf (2014)
Working Paper.

Abstract: This paper examines, whether a shift in US Monetary Policy can be detected using various specifications of the Taylor Rule and applying Quandt-Andrews Breakpoint Tests to ex-post and real time data. Using revised data, some weak evidence is found for a possible breakpoint in the first quarter of 2001 by conducting Breakpoint Tests with respect to standard specifications of the Taylor Rule including a smoothing parameter. This evidence is further reinforced by out-of-sample forecast exercises and narrative records. Replacing the data with real time data series constructed from the Greenbook series available to the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) at the time of the decision making process, however, yields convincing evidence for a more consistent monetary policy. Breakpoint tests and out-of-sample forecasts fail to identify any significant shift in policy fundamentals. Instead, low inflation estimates and fears of deflation, which had to be severely revised later on, can be singled out as relevant factors creating additional incentives for the FED to cut interest rates in the time from 2001Q1 to 2004Q1.

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The above Working Paper ("Detecting Shifts [...]", Rohlf, 2014) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For all published material and working paper series, the licenses and terms of the publisher or the institution apply.