Fall 2024 | Yale University
A Ph.D. field course covering latest research topics in urban economics and in environmental and energy economics. Topics include the links between urban planning and city productivity and livability, infrastructure investments in electrification and water management, managing externalities, environmental regulation, and the effects of climate change in cities and in rural areas.
General
Readings
8/28 ARKOLAKIS: Introduction: Facts on Spatial Economics and the Environment
[\o] Krusell, Smith Jr. (2022). Climate Change around the World. NBER working paper.
[\a] Balboni, Berman, Burgess, Olken (2022). The Economics of Tropical Deforestration. Working paper.
[\o] Arkolakis, Walsh. Clean Growth. Working paper.
[\o] Winkler, Fuchs, Rounsevell, Herold (2021). Global Land Use Changes are Four Times Greater than Previously Estimated. Nature Communications.
[\a] Baccini et al. (2012). Estimated Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Tropical Deforestration Improved by Carbon-Density Maps. Nature Climate Change, 2(3), 182–185.
[\a] Lawrence, Vandecar (2014). Effects of Tropical Deforestration on Climate and Agriculture. Nature Climate Change, 5, 27–36.
8/30 MOBARAK: Introduction: Technology Adoption and Behavior Change in Environmental Economics
[\a] Mobarak, A. M., & Saldanha, N. “Remove Barriers to Technology Adoption for People in Poverty.” Nature: Human Behavior, March 28, 2022.
[\o] “Sure, we can build a better toilet, but will people use it?” Wired Science News, August 17, 2012.
[\o] “What Cookstoves Tell Us about the Limits of Technology.” The Washington Post, May 8, 2012
9/4 ARKOLAKIS: The Basic Urban Model
[\c] Fujita, Krugman, and Venables. Textbook Chapters 1–3.
[\a] Glaeser, E. L., & Gottlieb, J. D. “The Economics of Place-Making Policies.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2008.
[\a] Kline, P., & Moretti, E. “Local Economic Development, Agglomeration Economies, and the Big Push: 100 Years of Evidence from the Tennessee Valley Authority.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 129.1 (2014): 275–331.
[\o] Allen, T., & Arkolakis, C. “Economic Activity Across Space.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 37.2 (2023): 3–28.
9/9 and 9/11 MOBARAK: Methods: Empirical Inference and Design of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT)
[\a] Duflo, E., Glennerster, R., & Kremer, M. (2008). “Using Randomization in Development Economics Research.” NBER Working Paper
[\a] Blattman, C., & Dercon, S. “The Impacts of Industrial and Entrepreneurial Work on Income and Health: Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2018.
[\o] Lee, Miguel, & Wolfram. “Experimental Evidence on the Demand for and Costs of Rural Electrification.” Journal of Political Economy 128(4).
[\a] Allcott, H. “Site Selection Bias in Program Evaluation.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(3): 1117–1165, 2015.
[\a] Deaton, A. “Instruments of Development.” NBER Working Paper
Videos about Evaluation and Randomization:
9/16 ARKOLAKIS: Modeling Environmental Externalities: CO₂, Pollution
[\a] Nordhaus, W. (2007). “To Tax or Not to Tax: The Case for a Carbon Tax.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 1, 26–44.
[\a] Cruz, Rossi-Hansberg. The Economic Geography of Global Warming. NBER Working Paper, 2022.
[\o] Krusell, P., & Smith, A. A. Jr. Climate Change Around the World. NBER Working Paper, 2022.
[\o] Bilal, A., & Rossi-Hansberg, E. Anticipating Climate Change Across the United States. NBER Working Paper, 2023.
[\a] Nath, I. B., Ramey, V. A., & Klenow, P. J. How Much Will Global Warming Cool Global Growth? Working paper, 2023.
[\o] Copeland, B. R., Shapiro, J. S., & Taylor, M. S. “Globalization and the Environment.” Handbook of International Economics, 2021.
9/18 ARKOLAKIS: The Basic Migration and Commuting Model
[\o] Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M., et al. "The economics of density: Evidence from the Berlin Wall." Econometrica 83.6 (2015): 2127–2189.
[\a] Bryan, Gharad, and Melanie Morten. "The aggregate productivity effects of internal migration: Evidence from Indonesia." Journal of Political Economy 127.5 (2019): 2229–2268.
[\o] Christoph Albert, Paula Bustos, and Jacopo Ponticelli (2023). The Effects of Climate Change on Labor and Capital Reallocation. Mimeo.
9/23, 9/25 ARKOLAKIS: Microeconomic and Macroeconomic Effects of Climate Change
[\o] Nath, Ishan B., Valerie A. Ramey, and Peter J. Klenow. How Much Will Global Warming Cool Global Growth? No. w32761. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024.
[\o] Bilal, Adrien, and Diego R. Känzig. The Macroeconomic Impact of Climate Change: Global vs. Local Temperature. No. w32450. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024.
[\a] Nordhaus, W. D. "An optimal transition path for controlling greenhouse gases." Science 258.5086 (1992): 1315–1319.
[\o] Dell, Melissa, Benjamin F. Jones, and Benjamin A. Olken (2012). “Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 4.3, pp. 66–95.
[\o] Dell, Melissa, Benjamin F. Jones, and Benjamin A. Olken (2014). “What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate–Economy Literature.” Journal of Economic Literature 52.3, pp. 740–798.
[\a] Burke, Marshall, Solomon M. Hsiang, and Edward Miguel (2015). “Global Nonlinear Effect of Temperature on Economic Production.” Nature 527.7577, pp. 235–239.
9/30 ARKOLAKIS: A Framework for Land Use and Resource Extraction
[\o] Costinot, Arnaud, Dave Donaldson, and Cory Smith. "Evolving Comparative Advantage and the Impact of Climate Change in Agricultural Markets: Evidence from 1.7 Million Fields Around the World." Journal of Political Economy 124.1 (2016): 205–248.
[\o] Farokhi, Farid, Elliot Kang, Heitor Pellegrina, and Sebastian Sotelo (2023). “Deforestation: A Global and Dynamic Perspective.” Mimeo.
[\a] Clare Balboni, Robin Burgess, and Benjamin A. Olken (2023). “The Origins and Control of Forest Fires in the Tropics.” Mimeo.
[\o] Grosset, Florian, Anna Papp, and Charles Taylor (2023). "Rain Follows the Forest: Land Use Policy, Climate Change, and Adaptation."
Useful publicly available data
[\o] https://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ (granular population, structures, building heights, urbanization etc.)
[\o] https://dataforgood.facebook.com/dfg/tools (infrastructure, population, connectivity, social connections, wealth, public insights).
10/2, 10/7 ARKOLAKIS: Environmental Resources: Water, Biodiversity, Forest, Waste Management, Remote Sensing Data
[\o] Nath, Ishan, Tamma (2023). “Agriculture, Trade, and the Spatial Efficiency of Global Water Use.” Mimeo.
[\a] Kim, Jihee, et al. "The Economic Costs of Trade Sanctions: Evidence from North Korea." SSRN 4032573 (2022).
[\o] Donghyun Ahn, Jeasurk Yang, Sungwon Han, Sungwon Park, Susang Lee, Jihee Kim, Sangyoon Park, Hyunjoo Yang, and Meeyoung Cha,. “Measuring Economic Development in North Korea: Human–Machine Collaboration Using Satellite Imagery.” Nature Communications (forthcoming).
Arkolakis, Costas, Jose-Antonio Espin-Sanchez, Anton Yang, and Conor Walsh (2023). “Deep Waters.” Mimeo.
[\a] Fenichel, E. P., Abbott, J. K., & Yun, S. D. (2018). “The Nature of Natural Capital and Ecosystem Income.” In Handbook of Environmental Economics, North Holland, pp. 85–142.
[\a] Barbier, E. B. (2013). “Wealth Accounting, Ecological Capital and Ecosystem Services.” Environment and Development Economics 18, 133–161.
[\a] Dasgupta, P. (2014). “Measuring the Wealth of Nations.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 6, 17–31.
[\o] Fenichel, E. P., and Abbott, J. K. (2014). Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 1(1–2): 1–27.
[\o] Arrow, K., Dasgupta, P., Goulder, L., et al. (2004). “Are We Consuming Too Much?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, 147–172.
[\o] Nordhaus, W. D., & Tobin, J. (1973). “Is Growth Obsolete?” Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect. National Bureau of Economic Research, pp. 1–80.
[\a] Espin-Sanchez and Donna (2018). "Complements and Substitutes in Sequential Auctions: The Case of Water Auctions." RAND Journal of Economics 49(1): 87–127.
[\o] Espin-Sanchez and Donna (2023). "The Illiquidity of Water Markets: Efficient Institutions for Water Allocation in Southeastern Spain." Working paper.
[\o] Espin-Sanchez and Truffa (2023). "Playing Checkers in Chinatown." Working paper.
[\o] Rafey (2023). "Droughts, Deluges, and (River) Diversions: Valuing Market-Based Water Reallocation." American Economic Review 113(2): 430–471.
[\o] Kong (2023). "Liquid Markets: An Empirical Analysis of a Water Exchange." Working paper.
10/14 ARKOLAKIS: Renewable Growth, Electrification, Clean Innovation
[\o] Arkolakis, Costas, and Conor Walsh (2022). "Clean Growth."
Van Reenen et al.
[\o] Ryan, Nicholas. “Energy Productivity and Energy Demand: Experimental Evidence from Indian Manufacturing Plants.” NBER Working Paper No. 24619 (2018).
[\o] Garcia-Lembergman, Ramondo, Rodriguez-Clare, and Shapiro. “The Carbon Footprint of Multinational Production.”
[\o] Xiang, Wei (2023). “Clean Growth and Environmental Policies in the Global Economy.”
10/30 ARKOLAKIS: Transportation
[\o] Allen, Treb, and Costas Arkolakis. "Trade and the Topography of the Spatial Economy." Quarterly Journal of Economics 129.3 (2014): 1085–1140.
[\o] Allen, Treb, and Costas Arkolakis. "The Welfare Effects of Transportation Infrastructure Improvements." Review of Economic Studies 89.6 (2022): 2911–2957.
[\a] Fajgelbaum, Pablo D., and Edouard Schaal. "Optimal Transport Networks in Spatial Equilibrium." Econometrica 88.4 (2020): 1411–1452.
[\a] Tsivanidis, Nick. “Evaluating the Impact of Urban Transit Infrastructure: Evidence from Bogotá’s TransMilenio.” UC Berkeley (mimeo), 2020.
[\o] Barwick, Panle Jia, et al. “Efficiency and Equity Impacts of Urban Transportation Policies with Equilibrium Sorting.” NBER Working Paper 29012 (2021).
[\o] Wong, Woang Foong and Simon Fuchs (2022). “Multimodal Transport Networks.” Mimeo.
[\a] Brancaccio, Giulia, Myrto Kalouptsidi, and Theodore Papageorgiou. "Geography, Transportation, and Endogenous Trade Costs." Econometrica 88.2 (2020): 657–691.
[\o] Conwell, Lucas (2022). "Subways or Minibuses? Privatized Provision of Public Transit." Mimeo.
[\a] Gillingham, Kenneth, et al. "Equilibrium Trade in Automobiles." Journal of Political Economy 130.10 (2022): 2534–2593.
11/4 MOBARAK: Methods: The Science of Scaling Interventions
[\o] Mobarak, A. M., and M. Rosenzweig. “Risk, Insurance and Wages in General Equilibrium.”
[\a] Davis, C. A., and A. M. Mobarak. “The Challenge of Scaling Effective Interventions: A Path Forward for Research and Policy.” World Development 127 (March 2020).
[\o] Mobarak, A. M. “Assessing Social Aid: The Scale-Up Process Needs Evidence, Too.” Nature 609 (2022): 892–894.
11/6 MOBARAK: Rural–Urban Wage Gaps
[\o] Gollin, D., Lagakos, D., & Waugh, M. E. (2013). “The Agricultural Productivity Gap.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(2): 939–993.
[\o] Hicks, J. H., Kleemans, M., Li, N. Y., & Miguel, E. (2017). “Reevaluating Agricultural Productivity Gaps with Longitudinal Microdata.” NBER Working Paper 23253.
[\a] Lagakos, S., Marshall, A. M. Mobarak, C. Vernot, and M. Waugh. “Migration Costs and Observational Returns to Rural–Urban Migration in the Developing World.” Journal of Monetary Economics.
[\a] Young, Alwyn. “Inequality, the Urban–Rural Gap, and Migration.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 128 (2013): 1727–1785.
11/11 MOBARAK: Internal Migration
[\a] Bryan, G., Chowdhury, S., and Mobarak, A. M. “Under-Investment in a Profitable Technology: The Case of Seasonal Migration in Bangladesh.” Econometrica 82(5): 1671–1748, September 2014.
[\o] Meghir, C., Mobarak, A. M., Mommaerts, C., & Morten, M. “Migration and Informal Insurance.” Review of Economic Studies.
[\a] Lagakos, D., Mobarak, A. M., & Waugh, M. E. “The Welfare Effects of Encouraging Rural–Urban Migration.” Econometrica (2022).
11/13 MOBARAK: Effects of Migration Restrictions in China: Pollution and Child Development
[\o] Khanna, G., Liang, W., Mobarak, A. M., & Song, R. “The Productivity Consequences of Pollution-Induced Migration in China.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.
[\o] Gao, X., Liang, W., Mobarak, A. M., & Song, R. “Daughters Left Behind: How Trade Liberalization Harms Girls in China When Government Restricts Migration.”
11/18 MOBARAK: Conditional Cash Transfers for Conservation
[\o] Jayachandran, S., De Laat, J., Lambin, E., Stanton, C., Audy, R., & Thomas, N. “Cash for Carbon: A Randomized Trial of Payments for Ecosystem Services to Reduce Deforestation.” Science 357(6348): 267–273 (2017).
[\a] Baird, S., McIntosh, C., & Özler, B. “Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics (2011).
[\o] Alatas, V., Banerjee, A., Hanna, R., Olken, B. A., Purnamasari, R., & Wai-Poi, M. (2013). “Ordeal Mechanisms in Targeting: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia.” Journal of Political Economy 124(2).
[\a] Bryan, G., Chowdhury, S., Mobarak, A. M., Morten, M., & Smits, J. “Encouragement and Distortionary Effects of Conditional Cash Transfers.” Journal of Public Economics.
11/20 MOBARAK: Collective Action, Demand Interlinkages, and Spillover Effects
[\a] Crépon, B., Duflo, E., Gurgand, M., Rathelot, R., & Zamora, P. (2013). “Do Labor Market Policies Have Displacement Effects? Evidence from a Clustered Randomized Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 128(2): 531–580.
[\a] Kremer, M., & Miguel, E. “Worms.” Econometrica 72(1): 159–217 (2004).
[\a] Guiteras, R., Levinsohn, J., & Mobarak, A. M. “Demand Estimation with Strategic Complementarities: Sanitation in Bangladesh.”
[\o] Bakhtiar, M., Guiteras, R., Levinsohn, J., & Mobarak, A. M. (2023). “Social and Financial Incentives for Overcoming a Collective Action Problem.” Journal of Development Economics 162, May 2023.
12/2 MOBARAK: Measuring Environmental Externalities
[\a] Lipscomb, M., & Mobarak, A. M. “Decentralization and Pollution Spillovers: Evidence from the Re-Drawing of County Borders in Brazil.” Review of Economic Studies 84(1): 464–502 (2017).
[\o] Dipoppa, F., & Gulzar, S. “Administrative Incentives Impact Crop-Residue Burning and Health in South Asia.”
[\a] He, Guojun, Wang, Shaoda, & Zhang, Bing. "Watering Down Environmental Regulation in China." Quarterly Journal of Economics 135(4): 2315–2385 (2020).
[\o] Ryan, N., & Sudarshan, A. “Rationing the Commons.” Journal of Political Economy 130(1): 210–257 (2022).
12/4 MOBARAK: Implementing Environmental Regulations
[\o] Lira, A. G., & Mobarak, A. M. “Slippery Fish: Enforcing Regulation When Agents Learn and Adapt.” Journal of the European Economic Association.
12/9 MOBARAK: Developing a Research Agenda on Climate Change
[\a] Desmet, K., & Rossi-Hansberg, E. “On the Spatial Economic Impact of Global Warming.” Journal of Urban Economics 88 (2015): 16–37.
[\o] Conte, B., Desmet, K., Nagy, D., & Rossi-Hansberg, E. “Local Sectoral Specialization in a Warming World.” Journal of Economic Geography 21 (2021): 493–530.
If we have time... MOBARAK: Deforestation
[\o] Balboni, Clare, Aaron Berman, Robin Burgess, & Ben Olken. “The Economics of Tropical Deforestation.” Annual Review of Economics.
[\a] Balboni, Burgess, & Olken. “The Origins and Control of Forest Fires in the Tropics.” Review of Economic Studies (2023).
[\o] Assunção, J., Lipscomb, M., Mobarak, A. M., & Szerman, D. “Agricultural Productivity and Deforestation: Evidence from Brazil.”
[\a] Burgess, R., Hansen, M., Olken, B., Potapov, P., & Sieber, S. “The Political Economy of Deforestation in the Tropics.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 127(4): 1707–1754 (2012).