Conference Agenda

Our study investigates the impact of dam removal on local property prices using a combination of GIS analysis and a stacked difference-in-differences design. We find that the magnitude and direction of our results are very sensitive to the definition of near (treated) and far (control) regions; we observe both statistically significant increases and decreases in property values. Overall, our results are mixed as to whether dam removal harms or benefits nearby property owners, with evidence of a positive impact in the range of 5-9% when looking at the sample of houses within 2km of a removed dam and a negative impact in the range of 5-11% when looking at the sample of houses within 4-6.5km of a removed dam.

Forests generate important public goods, including carbon storage and habitat for biodiversity, while also contributing to increasing wildfire risks. Private landowners do not fully internalize these benefits and risks, potentially leading to socially inefficient management and undersupply of public goods. Exploiting the historical ‘checkerboard’ land pattern in the American West as an instrument for ownership, we show that public ownership reduces timber harvests and herbicide use in forests, resulting in greater carbon storage, higher biodiversity, and, surprisingly, also lower wildfire risk. These results underscore the role of land ownership in shaping the supply of public goods.

Does adapting to climate change end up changing the climate—and with it, long-run agricultural development? This paper studies how large-scale irrigation infrastructures modify weather patterns and agricultural transformation in India. Using five decades of administrative, climatic, and agricultural data, I exploit exogenous variation in distant downwind exposure to irrigation induced by prevailing winds. Irrigation raises rainfall downwind by 9 percent. These wetter conditions boost agricultural output, but entirely through land expansion rather than productivity gains. Farmers respond by investing in private irrigation, indicating that rainfall and irrigation might be complements, not substitutes, with no evidence of increased mechanization, fertilizer use, or crop switching. As a result, in the long-run, a more favorable climate sustains smallholders and enables large farm consolidation, yet slows modernization. By showing that adaptation infrastructure alters the climate and that these climatic shifts, in turn, reshape adaptive behavior, this paper reveals a feedback loop between human adaptation and the environment, challenging conventional approaches to causally assessing the role of adaptation in a changing climate.

Infrastructure-led development and agricultural land preservation represent competing priorities in rapidly developing countries. This study examines the causal impact of rural road construction on land use changes in China from 1995 to 2020, using a comprehensive village-level panel dataset covering 381,153 villages. Employing a matching-based instrumental variable strategy that exploits hierarchical transportation planning, we find that each kilometer of road expansion causes a loss of 4.14 hectares of cropland and a gain of 4.33 hectares of construction land. Structural decomposition reveals that 91.2% of cropland outflow converts to construction land, while compensatory inflows remain limited, creating a six-fold imbalance between outflow and inflow. Policy intensification in 2010 reduced road-induced conversion by 40%, demonstrating that regulations can dampen land use pressures. However, the dominant conversion pathway persists, and compensatory mechanisms face implementation challenges. The findings highlight the need for complementary policy instruments that align economic incentives with preservation goals.