Publication
[Job Market Paper] The Impact of External Pollution on Firm Green Innovation, Environmental and Resource Economics (2021), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-021-00614-5
Ying Wang, Richard T. Woodward and Jing-yue Liu
Does environmental quality affect firms’ activities that might improve that quality? In this paper, we use China's public heating policy as a quasi-experiment to investigate the impact of exogenous pollution differences on green innovation behavior. We use a regression discontinuity model, and carry out a suite of robustness tests. We consistently find that firms located in cities with an exogenous source of heavy pollution tend to adopt green innovation at a lower rate while we find no difference in the rate at which they adopt non-green innovation. We find a strong causal effect: being north of the boundary, where pollution levels are higher, leads firms to adopt less green innovation. Firms located in the heating areas report roughly 1 less green innovation per billion RMB of assets, a substantial difference given the average number of green innovations per billion RMB of assets of northern firms is 0.641.
Working Paper
Social Connections, Wages and Welfare
Ying Wang and Richard T. Woodward
In this paper, we develop a model of social connections, in which players are required to share resources to establish social connections. In the basic model, we show that the equilibrium is not Pareto efficient. Introducing a compensation mechanism, we show that a Pareto improving trade could be made. We then show that if a wage increase for one player leads to a reduction in social connections, under some circumstances a mutually beneficial agreement could be reached in which the player foregoes the wage increase in exchange for a cash transfer.
Estimating the Cost of Clean Air from a Short-Period Treatment
Ying Wang, Yong Liu and Richard T. Woodward
During 2016 G20 at Hangzhou, the local government applied a stringent air pollution policy to make sure the blue sky. We have collected data on listed firms in China, and both local and country economic performance data. Since the treatment only lasted for 40 days, and the data is quarterly, we will predict the performance of the treated firms, to estimate the cost of having cleaning air in Hangzhou.
Does Democracy Matter for the Right Public Policy against Covid-19?
Ying Wang
The Covid-19 pandemic is a crisis that has challenged all governments to implement the right policies to reduce the virus’ effects. In this research, I will study whether the type of government is a determining factor in government effectiveness. The level of democracy is measured by the democracy index established by The Economist. The confirmed cases and death cases data are from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. I also obtained country-level data on economic development from World Bank, infrastructure and government spending on health care from WHO, education, age population from United Nations Development Programme. Using these data, I will develop a measure of government effectiveness in addressing Covid-19, and then investigate the impact of different levels of democracy on the performance measure.
The Impact of a Wage Increase on Happiness Through Social Connections
Ying Wang and Richard T. Woodward
It is well-established in psychology that social connections have a significant impact on human health. The University of Wisconsin carried out the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), which is an American nationwide household survey. It includes questions about happiness, social behavior, economic behavior, and the respondent’s geographic information. To acquire the county-level data, we have passed an IRB application for this project. Together with the county-level wage data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and the county-level migration data from the United States Census Bureau, we could estimate the impact of wage increase and migration on social connections and happiness. The purpose of this research is to test the hypothesis established by my first chapter, which is when a wage increase happens, the ones who do not gain the wage increase will have reduced utility, since the social connections level is reduced.