Essays in Environmental Economics

This research examines both health effects and market responses from local changes in environmental quality. Both can be of significant interest to policy makers. I examine the health effects of population exposure to pollution from a primary resource-extraction industry and the housing-market effects when an area is officially designated as being at risk from water pollution exposure. In Chapter II, I examine how adult mortality rates are affected by coal-mining activity in Appalachia. I find increased surface coal-mining activity leads to increased mortality attributable to internal causes, specifically among the population over age 65. Increased surface coal mining is most significantly associated with increases in mortality from cardiovascular disease, suggesting air pollution as a plausible mechanism. Chapter III documents the association between infant health and coal-mining activity in Appalachia. Descriptive evidence implies infant health outcomes are worse in certain Appalachian coal counties compared to other parts of the U.S., but after controlling for other sources of observed and unobserved heterogeneity, I find no evidence that changes in surface coal-mining activity directly affect birth outcomes in these counties. In Chapter IV, I evaluate the effect of a policy intervention in Oregon which provided information to residents regarding potential exposure to groundwater pollution from agricultural runoff. I find that this policy led to an increase in home prices for properties that were more likely to be reliant on public water supplies, suggesting that consumer demand shifted away from well-water-dependent properties that were at risk of contamination. The heterogeneity of the policy effect is consistent with a heightened awareness of groundwater quality among residents and housing market participants after the information was announced