Research

PUBLISHED & ACCEPTED PAPERS

“The Impact of Lead Exposure on Fertility, Infant Mortality, and Infant Birth Outcomes,” joint with Karen Clay and Alex Hollingsworth, Accepted at Review of Environmental Economics and Policy (NBER Working Paper No. 31379, IZA Discussion Paper No. 16236).

“Air Pollution and Adult Cognition: Evidence from Brain Training,” joint with Andrea La Nauze, Forthcoming at Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (NBER Working Paper No. 28785, IZA Discussion Paper No. 14353).

“The Historical Impact of Coal on Cities,” joint with Karen Clay and Joshua Lewis, Forthcoming at Regional Science and Urban Economics -- Special Issue on Urban Economics and the Environment (NBER Working Paper No. 31365, IZA Discussion Paper No. 16229).

“Bridging the Gap: Mismatch Effects and Catch-Up Dynamics Under a Brazilian College Affirmative Action Program,” joint with Rodrigo Oliveira and Alei Santos, Economics of Education Review 98, 102501, 2024 (NBER Working Paper No. 31403, IZA Discussion Paper No. 16239, UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2022/31, previously circulated as Affirmative Action With No Major Switching: Evidence from a Top University in Brazil).

“Does LEED Certification Save Energy? Evidence from Federal Buildings”, joint with Karen Clay and Xiaochen Sun, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 121: 102866, 2023 (NBER Working Paper No. 28612, IZA Discussion Paper No. 14211).

“A Unifying Approach to Measuring Climate Impacts and Adaptation”, joint with Antonio Bento, Noah Miller, and Mehreen Mookerjee, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 121: 102843, 2023 (NBER Working Paper No. 27247, IZA Discussion Paper No. 13290).

"Incidental Adaptation: The Role of Non-Climate Regulations", joint with Antonio Bento, Noah Miller, and Mehreen Mookerjee, Environmental and Resource Economics (Lead Article) 86(3): 305-343, 2023 (NBER Working Paper No. 28783, IZA Discussion Paper No. 14355, previously circulated as Time is of the Essence: Climate Adaptation Induced by Non-Climate Existing Institutions).

“Timing Matters: Shifting Economic Activity and Intra-day Variation in Ambient Ozone Concentrations,” joint with David Adler, Journal of Public Economics 223: 104905, 2023 (NBER Working Paper No. 31069, IZA Discussion Paper No. 13428).

“The Value of Health Insurance during a Crisis: Effects of Medicaid Implementation on Pandemic Influenza Mortality”, joint with Karen Clay, Joshua Lewis, and Xiao Wang, forthcoming at Review of Economics and Statistics (NBER Working Paper No. 27120, IZA Discussion Paper No. 13200).

“Canary in a Coal Mine: Infant Mortality and Tradeoffs Associated with Mid-20th Century Air Pollution”, joint with Karen Clay and Joshua Lewis, forthcoming at Review of Economics and Statistics (NBER Working Paper No. 22155, IZA Discussion Paper No. 9884).

“The Power of Hydroelectric Dams: Historical Evidence from the United States over the 20th Century”, Economic Journal 133(649): 420-459, 2023 (IZA Discussion Paper No. 8082).

“Assortative Matching or Exclusionary Hiring? The Impact of Firm Policies on Racial Wage Differences in Brazil,” joint with François Gerard, Lorenzo Lagos, and David Card, American Economic Review 111(10): 3418-57, 2021 (NBER Working Paper No. 25176, IZA Discussion Paper No. 11923).

“Toxic Truth: Lead and Fertility”, joint with Karen Clay and Margarita Portnykh, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 8(5): 975-1012, 2021 (NBER Working Paper No. 24607, IZA Discussion Paper No. 11541).

“Climate-Induced Tradeoffs in Planning and Operating Costs of a Regional Electricity System”, joint with Francisco Fonseca, Michael Craig, Paulina Jaramillo, Mario Berges, et al., Environmental Science & Technology 55(16): 11204-11215, 2021.

““Placebo Tests” for the Impacts of Air Pollution on Health: The Challenge of Limited Healthcare Infrastructure”, joint with Bruna Guidetti and Paula Pereda, AEA Papers and Proceedings 111: 371-375, 2021 (IZA Discussion Paper No. 14080).

“Effects of Climate Change on Capacity Expansion Decisions of an Electricity Generation Fleet in the Southeast U.S.”, joint with Francisco Fonseca, Michael Craig, Paulina Jaramillo, Mario Berges, et al., Environmental Science & Technology 55(4): 2522-2531, 2021.

“Using Machine Learning to Predict Retrofit Effects for a Commercial Building Portfolio”, joint with Yujie Xu and Vivian Loftness, Energies 2021, 14, 4334.

“Short- and Long-Run Impacts of Rural Electrification: Evidence from the Rollout of the U.S. Power Grid”, joint with Joshua Lewis, Journal of Development Economics 143 (2020): 102412 (IZA Discussion Paper No. 11243).

“Considering the Nuclear Option: Hidden Benefits and Internalized Social Costs of Nuclear Power in the U.S. Since 1970”, joint with David Adler and Akshaya Jha, Resource and Energy Economics 59 (2020): 101127.

“What Explains Cross-City Variation in Mortality during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic? Evidence from 440 U.S. Cities”, joint with Karen Clay and Joshua Lewis, Economics & Human Biology 35 (2019): 42-50 (IZA Discussion Paper No. 12177).

“Seasonal Effects of Climate Change on Intra-day Electricity Demand Patterns”, joint with Francisco Fonseca, Paulina Jaramillo, and Mario Berges, Climatic Change 154(3-4): 435-451, 2019.

“The Legacy Lead Deposition in Soils and Its Impact on Cognitive Function in Preschool-Aged Children in the United States”, joint with Karen Clay and Margarita Portnykh, Economics & Human Biology 33 (2019): 181-192 (IZA Discussion Paper No. 12178).

“The Unintended Impact of Ecosystem Preservation on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Evidence from Environmental Constraints on Hydropower Development in the United States”, PLoS ONE 14(1): e0210483, 2019.

“Pollution, Infectious Disease, and Mortality: Evidence from the 1918-1919 Spanish Influenza Pandemic”, joint with Karen Clay and Joshua Lewis, Journal of Economic History 78(4): 1179-1209, December 2018 (NBER Working Paper No. 21635, IZA Discussion Paper No. 9399).

“‘Ticking Bomb’: The Impact of Climate Change on the Incidence of Lyme Disease”, joint with Igor Dumic, Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology, Article 5719081 (2018) (Special Issue on Climate Change Connected to Infectious Human Diseases).

“A Retrospective Analysis of the Market Price Response to Distributed Photovoltaic Generation in California”, joint with Michael T. Craig, Paulina Jaramillo, Bri-Mathias Hodge, and Nathaniel J. Williams, Energy Policy 121 (2018): 394-403.

“The Local Socio-Economic Impacts of Large Hydropower Plant Development in a Developing Country”, joint with Felipe de Faria, Alex Davis, and Paulina Jaramillo, Energy Economics 67 (2017): 533-544.

“Impacts of Nuclear Plant Shutdown on Coal-fired Power Generation and Infant Health in the Tennessee Valley in the 1980s”, Nature Energy 2, 17051 (2017).

WORKING PAPERS

“Impacts of the Clean Air Act on the Power Sector from 1938-1994: Anticipation and Adaptation,” joint with Karen Clay, Akshaya Jha, and Joshua Lewis, (NBER Working Paper No. 28962, IZA Discussion Paper No. 14494).

This study leverages newly digitized data on virtually every fossil-fuel power plant in the United States from 1938-1994 to provide the first assessment of the impacts of the 1970 Clean Air Act (CAA) that accounts for anticipation. The extended pre-regulation benchmark allows us to account for anticipatory behavior by electric utilities in the years leading up to the Act’s passage. Guided by predictions from a simple theoretical framework, we use a difference-in-differences approach to examine the impacts of the Act’s nonattainment designations on coal-fired power plants of different vintages. We find that nonattainment designation led to large and persistent decreases in plant productivity, which would be substantially underestimated without data from well before the passage of the 1970 CAA. The productivity losses were concentrated only among plants built before 1963. This timing aligns with the passage of the original 1963 CAA, which served as a signal of impending federal regulation. We provide empirical and historical evidence of anticipatory responses by utilities in the design and siting of plants that opened after 1963. Finally, we find that the aggregate productivity losses of the CAA borne by the power sector were substantially mitigated by the reallocation of output away from older less productive power plants.

“Health Shocks under Hospital Capacity Constraint:Evidence from Air Pollution in Sao Paulo, Brazil,” joint with Bruna Guidetti, and Paula Pereda,  (NBER Working Paper No. 32224, IZA Discussion Paper No. 13211).

When a health shock hits a location, the healthcare infrastructure needs to be adjusted to meet the increased demand. ‘This may be a challenge in developing countries because of limited hospital capacity. In this study, we examine the consequences of health shocks induced by air pollution in a large metropolitan area in the developing world: Sao Paulo, Brazil. Using daily data from 2015-2017, and an instrumental variable approach based on wind speed, we provide evidence that exposure to particulate ma‹tter (PM10) causes an increase in pediatric hospitalizations for respiratory diseases, which in turn leads to a decrease in hospital admissions for elective and non-urgent care such as phimosis surgery and video-EEG (electroencephalograph) monitoring. Importantly, emergency procedures such as appendectomy and bone fracture repair are not a‚ffected. While strained Sao Paulo hospitals seem to absorb the increased demand induced by poor air quality, our results imply that the common practice of using health outcomes unrelated to pollution as “placebo tests” in studies on the e‚ffects of air pollution might be inadequate in sett‹ings with limited healthcare infrastructure. ‘This is oft‰en the case in developing countries, where severe pollution is also ubiquitous, but also happens in deprived areas in the developed world.

“Climate Change Will Unravel Air Quality Regulations,” joint with David Adler, Antonio Bento, and Noah Miller.

Using daily data for the United States over the period 1980-2019, we estimate the impacts of temperature on ambient ozone concentrations, accounting for adaptation to climatic change. We find that even with adaptation, rises in temperature will steeply increase ozone levels by over 9 ppb on days above 25C. By mid-century, we calculate that 189 additional counties will be violating the air quality standards, with 33 million more residents exposed to unhealthy levels of ozone. Climate change will thus put the ambient ozone standards at risk as the costs of compliance with existing standards will likely increase. In light of a recent EPA ruling that would effectively remove co-benefits from ozone precursor reductions from the cost-benefit analysis of those standards, they will be in peril.

WORK IN PROGRESS

“Price Stabilization Policy, Gasoline Consumption, and Health Externality: Evidence from Brazil,” joint with Andre Ribeiro.  

“Impact of a Cap-and-Trade Program on Local Air Pollution: Evidence from the Acid Rain Program,” joint with Karen Clay and Xiaochen Sun.  

“Examining the Role of ‘Redlining’ in the Energy Transition: Insights from the Shift in Home Heating from Coal to Natural Gas and Electricity,” with Daniel Aaronson, Karen Clay, Daniel Hartley, and Bhashkar Mazumder.

“Airborne Lead Pollution and Infant Mortality,” joint with Karen Clay and Xiao Wang.  

“The Economics of Local Air Quality Alerts,” joint with David Adler and Sarah Taylor.  

“Industrial Activity and Land Degradation: Evidence from Slaughterhouse Openings in Brazil,” joint with Daniel Da Mata and Mario Dotta.  

“Impacts of Weakening Anti-Environmental Policy: Evidence from Vehicle Ownership Tax in Brazil,” joint with Gabriel Monteiro.

“Carbon Taxation in Emerging Economies: Evidence from South Africa,” joint with Johannes Gallé, Rodrigo Oliveira, Daniel Overbeck, and Nadine Riedel.

“The Role of Firms on the Racial Wage Gap in the United States,” joint with Lorenzo Lagos and Giovanni Righi.

“Impacts of Affirmative Action in Higher Education on Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Brazil,” joint with Rodrigo Oliveira.