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Working Paper
Death of Coal and Breath of Life: The Effect of Power Plant Closure on Local Air Quality
The number of U.S. coal-fired power plants declined by nearly 250 between 2001 and 2018. Given that burning coal generates large amounts of particulate matter, which is known to have adverse health effects, the closure of a coal-fired power plant should improve local air quality. Using spatial panel data from air quality monitor stations and coal-fired power plants, we estimate the relationship between plant closure and local air quality. We find that on average, the levels of particulate matter within 25 and 50 mile buffers around air quality monitors declined between 7 and 14 percent with ...
Working Paper
Earthquakes and House Prices: Evidence from Oklahoma
This paper examines the impact of earthquakes on residential property values using sales data from Oklahoma from 2006 to 2014. Before 2010, Oklahoma had only a couple of earthquakes per year that were strong enough to be felt by residents. Since 2010, seismic activity has increased, bring potentially damaging quakes several times each year and perceptible quakes every few days. Using hedonic models, we estimate that prices decline by 3 to 4 percent after a home has experienced a moderate earthquake measuring 4 or 5 on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. Prices can decline up to 9.8 percent ...
Working Paper
Traffic Noise in Georgia: Sound Levels and Inequality
Using Lorenz-type curves, means tests, ordinary least squares, and locally weighted regressions (LWR), we examine the relative burdens of whites, blacks, and Hispanics in Georgia from road and air traffic noise. We find that whites bear less noise than either blacks or Hispanics and that blacks tend to experience more traffic noise than Hispanics. While every Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) showed that blacks experienced relatively more noise than average, such a result did not hold for Hispanics in roughly half of the MSAs. We find much heterogeneity across Census tracts using LWR. For ...
Working Paper
Extreme Wildfires, Distant Air Pollution, and Household Financial Health
We link detailed wildfire burn, satellite smoke plume, and ground-level pollution data to estimate the effects of extreme wildfire and related smoke and air pollution events on housing and consumer financial outcomes. Findings provide novel evidence of elevated spending, indebtedness, and loan delinquencies among households distant from the burn perimeter but exposed to high levels of wildfire-attributed air pollution. Results also show higher levels of financial distress among renters in the burn zone, particularly those with lower credit scores. Financial distress among homeowners within ...
Working Paper
Airport Noise in Atlanta: The Inequality of Sound
We examine how changes in the geographic concentrations of Hispanic and African-American populations are correlated with changes in probabilities of airport noise, in Atlanta, during 2003 and 2012. We estimate ordered probit and locally weighted ordered probit regressions for three different noise categories to determine the correlations between these two demographic groups and the aircraft noise levels experienced by people in individual houses that sold. Then we determine the average coefficient for all houses sold in each Census block group, and we plot each year?s coefficients for each ...
Newsletter
The Broadening Impact of Rising Wildfire Smoke in the United States
Smoke from wildfires has increased dramatically in the United States in recent years. As a result, new populations, including many living in urban areas in the eastern parts of the country, have become increasingly exposed to particulate matter from wildfire smoke. These trends reflect the fact that larger and more intense plumes travel farther, affecting regions that have traditionally been far less exposed to wildfire smoke. In short, wildfire smoke has now become a national problem.