Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0763-0403

Date Available

8-4-2025

Year of Publication

2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

Business and Economics

Department/School/Program

Economics

Faculty

Dr. Lala Ma

Abstract

My dissertation is broadly focused on using data to quantify the consequences of pol- lution and is organized into three chapters. Chapter one estimates the effect on infant health of drinking water contamination attributable to tropical cyclones. Chapter two examines the heterogeneous effects of a policy aimed at reducing air pollution based on pre-existing air quality conditions. Lastly, chapter three investigates how regula- tions aimed at shaping housing development to minimize climate risk impacted the housing market in Houston Texas. Each of these chapters considers different con- sequences of pollution, from direct health costs of pollution exposure to secondary effects of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. They also provide insights into how policymakers can promote public health by reducing the threat of pollution. The first chapter of my dissertation, and my job market paper, assesses how tropical cyclones impacting a mother’s drinking water source affects her child’s health through water pollution. I differentiate between the effect of cyclones hitting the mother’s water source and residence to identify water pollution as a mechanism by which these storms affect infant health. Identifying this mechanism is important to justify investment in drinking water infrastructure to attenuate water pollution from cyclones. I find that water source exposure to cyclones increases coliform pollution in drinking water by 17.4% for a month and in utero exposure to contaminated water increases rates of preterm and low birthweight births by 5%. The cost of these excess preterm births was about $300 million a year from 2013 – 2021. Understanding the threat cyclones pose to drinking water infrastructure is particularly important as climate change increases the intensity of cyclones. In my second chapter co-authored with a team of professors at the University of Kentucky and the University of Calgary, I re-examine the effect of the NOx Budget Program (NBP), a government policy to improve air quality, to assess how pre-existing air quality conditions affect the efficacy of pollution control. This program targeted reductions in nitrogen oxides (NOx) with the intention of reducing ozone exposure. In this paper, we exploit the fact that reductions in NOx can either increase or decrease ozone depending on the preexisting level of NOx and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). We find that evergreen forests are a good proxy for VOCs (which are rarely observed in data at this time) and that the NBP’s effect depended on the amount of forest coverage. The final chapter of my dissertation coauthored with another graduate student examines the effect of a policy aimed to improve flood resilience of the housing supply in Houston. In 2018, the city of Houston enacted a series of housing code reforms intended to reduce the vulnerability of new housing in floodplains after Hurricane Harvey. This policy changed development costs on both the intensive and extensive margins. Within the 100-year floodplain, the reformed raised existing minimum foun- dation elevations, but Homes in the 500-year floodplain went from unregulated to the same minimum elevation as in the 100-year floodplain. To understand the impacts of this policy, we combine Corelogic housing transaction data with administrative tax records on lots in Harris County Texas to characterize the housing market in Harris County. We plan on utilizing variation in both flooding due to Hurricane Harvey and in the location of homes to produce a series of stylized facts regarding how severe weather events and flood protection programs impact the local housing market. In the future, we plan to incorporate this data into a structural model of Houston’s Housing supply to evaluate the impacts of other housing policies. This research is critical to understand how coastal municipalities can design housing policy to efficiently reduce the flood risk of their communities

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.299

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