ESSAYS IN APPLIED MICROECONOMICS

Abstract

My thesis is titled Essays in Applied Microeconomics and consists of three chapters, which study the effects of environmental factors (e.g., temperature and air pollution) on human well-beings and consequences of environmental policies. The first chapter examines the effects of high temperatures during pregnancy on the endowment and adult welfare outcomes. We find that exposure to hot weather triggers lower birth weight, and, in adulthood, non-negligible adverse effects on educational attainment, cognitive abilities, and height. In the second chapter, exploiting a rich quasi-experiment---the NOx Budget Trading Program (NBP), I provide robust evidence that the air pollution is associated with violent crimes, but not property crimes. The last chapter presents evidence on how a major cap-and-trade market affected the housing market. On one hand, consistent with the prediction from hedonic theory, house prices increased as air quality was improved. On the other hand, housing markets in high manufacturing intensity areas were weakened as a result of negative impacts of the policy on the manufacturing sector.