Conference Agenda

Transportation infrastructure is widely recognized for enhancing economic efficiency and regional connectivity. However, the very projects that reduce trade costs and stimulate industrial growth may also contribute to environmental degradation, raising an important question: can this apparent trade-off be reconciled? This paper investigates how highway expansion, through reductions in trade costs, influences the aggregate emissions intensity of industrial firms via its effect on resource allocative efficiency. To examine this relationship, I extend the model from \cite{10.1257/aer.20120549} by incorporating emissions as an additional dimension, drawing on insights from \cite{copeland2005trade}. The extended model derives conditions under which highway expansion improves industrial emissions intensity by enhancing resource allocation across firms. These findings underscore a potential mechanism through which infrastructure projects can align economic growth with environmental objectives.

Empirically, I examine the causal effects of highway expansion on industrial emissions intensity using detailed firm-level data from China. First, leveraging the identification strategy in \cite{wu2023road}, I show that Chinese highway expansion reduces markup dispersion within narrowly defined industries and leads to a decline in emissions intensity at the province level, validating the allocative efficiency channel. Second, employing geospatial highway data and an additional instrumental variable strategy, I find that highway expansion also reduces emissions intensity at the county level. These findings highlight a previously underexplored environmental co-benefit of transportation infrastructure. By bridging the gap between economic development and environmental sustainability, this study offers a novel perspective on the dual role of transportation infrastructure.

Large-scale infrastructure have significant social benefits but may also generate substantial local negative externalities, leading to opposition from nearby communities. This study estimates the local negative externalities of such environmental infrastructure by examining the impact of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) on nearby second-hand housing prices. Using data from nearly all large-scale (design capacity ≥10,000 m³/day) WWTPs in China and over a million second-hand housing transactions across ten provinces, we apply a difference-in-differences model. We find that the presence of WWTPs leads to a 3.5% decline in surrounding property prices. This effect is localized and exhibits post-adjustment, gradually diminishing with increasing distance from the WWTP and over time after the WWTP starts operating. Smaller and earlier WWTPs have a larger negative effect on nearby housing prices. Additionally, higher-income areas experience greater economic losses.

Treating China’s 2015 zero growth strategy in synthetic fertilizer and pesticide use (ZGS) as a quasi-natural experiment, this study investigates the impact of the policy on agricultural green innovations. We construct a panel dataset by matching green patents with listed companies’ databases, employing both difference-in-differences (DID) and synthetic DID to identify the policy’s green innovation effects and their mechanisms. Our results indicate that the implementation of ZGS contributed to a 10.6% increase in share of green patent applications. This finding remaining robust even after accounting for other shock effects and mitigating sample selection bias. The observed growth primarily stems from firms' innovative resource allocation rather than the leverage effect suggested by theoretical analyses. Furthermore, the ZGS more promotes substantive invention over strategic innovation. This positive innovation effect is particularly pronounced in private firms with low financial constraints, high levels of digitization, no political ties, and environmentally conscious leadership.

In 2015, about 2.7 billion people worldwide lived without access to clean cooking fuels and technology, according to the IEA report. Out of this, about 25 % resided in India, making up 56 % of Indian households. Many developing countries have initiated programs and initiatives to promote a transition to cleaner cooking fuels. This paper empirically analyzes the impact of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), the world's largest government program, designed to promote the adoption of LPG and indirectly support women's health. To achieve this goal, we proceed in three steps. First, we evaluate the program's impact on LPG adoption in Indian households. Then, we establish a causal relation between the use of LPG and the hemoglobin level of women. Finally, we estimate the program's direct impact on the hemoglobin level of women. The empirical strategy employs a difference-in-difference analysis using repeated cross-sections. The empirical results based on a large sample show that the program has an impact on the adoption of LPG and on women's health status.

Wind power is considered key in the transition towards net zero, but there are concerns about adverse health impacts on local residents. Based on precise geographical coordinates, we link representative longitudinal household data to all wind turbines in Germany and exploit their staggered rollout over two decades for identification in a spatial difference-in-differences design. We also consider exogenous wind directions. We find little evidence of negative effects on mental and physical health in the 12-Item Short Form Survey (SF-12), and on self-assessed health and doctor visits. Finally, we detect no impacts on suicides, as an extreme outcome of mental distress.