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Labor Market Implications On The Uptake Of The Earned Income Tax Credit In New Mexico Post Great Recession: 2008-2015, James Kaminsky

Economics ETDs

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the most successful poverty alleviation programs in the US tax code. In New Mexico tax filers may apply for a refundable credit – the Working Family Tax Credit (WFTC) – that is predicated upon receipt of the EITC on their federal return. However, the preponderance of research examining the efficacy of the EITC is premised upon two hypotheses: economic conditions are expanding and those seeking work can find it.

Subsequent to the Great Recession, it is not clear that these hypotheses hold. The Great Recession began in Q4-2007 and continued into …

Essays On Agricultural Water Pollution And Human Health, Na Lu

Economics ETDs

This dissertation mainly focuses on agricultural policies, water pollution and human health. Chapter.2 examines the causal impact of agricultural water pollution on individual health outcomes. The findings suggest that agricultural water pollution worsens health outcomes and these adverse health effects appear to be largely due to contaminated drinking water. Chapter.3 explores both of the intended wealth effect and unintended pollution effect on human health caused by China’s agricultural support polices. I find that although the income effect dominates on reducing the overall sickness, the pollution effect is more substantial on the diarrhea incidence and adult BMI. Income affects slightly higher …

Essays On Nutrition And Cognitive Production In Developing Countries: Evidence From Ethiopia & Nepal, Mohammad Ali

Economics ETDs

This dissertation is comprised of five chapters. The first chapter provides an outline of the three separate research papers that are combined in this dissertation. It highlights the goals of each paper, discusses their importance to the field of economics, and outlines their contributions to the existing literature. The final chapter summarizes the main conclusions from the three research articles and points to how my future research trajectory is shaped by my dissertation research.

The second chapter explores the effect of current health (denoted by BMI for age scores) on cognitive test scores directly and indirectly, through time allocated to …

Ostromian Lessons For Post-Disaster Resilience: Evidence From The 2015 Earthquake In Nepal, Veeshan Rayamajhee

Economics ETDs

The dissertation is organized in six chapters. The first chapter provides a synopsis of the four research articles that are comprised in this manuscript. It outlines the goals of each article and connects them to specific Ostromian insights to shed light on the empirical findings. Chapters 2, 3, and 5 are based on a field study that I conducted in Sindhupalchowk, Nepal following the devastating earthquake in 2015. Chapter 4 uses case studies from Chicago, New Orleans, Nepal, and Indonesia. The final chapter summarizes major lessons from the four papers.

The second chapter investigates household-level coping responses to the 7.8 …

Freshwater Conservation, Drinking Water Quality And Climate Change Adaptation: A Case Study On Nepal, Samrat B. Kunwar

Economics ETDs

Our world today faces a myriad of unprecedented environmental challenges that transcends spatial and temporal reach. These problems involve interconnected ecological and social systems operating on multiple scales and include issues like climate disruption, water stress, food security, biodiversity loss, over-population and species declines and extinctions.These issues are more acute in rapidly growing nations like Nepal, where environmental protection is often considered a luxury. Such environmentally unsound development practices will not only create an imbalance in the ecological and the social functioning and dynamics, but it also threatens the future development of the country itself. In this dissertation, I investigate …

Interdependencies Between Energy, The Environment, And Stakeholder Choices, Saleh Nur Muhammad Al Mamun

Economics ETDs

This dissertation contributes to the field of energy economics by expanding the knowledge of energy stakeholders’ decisions amid the interdependence of energy and environmental policies. I analyze three specific energy development decisions from multiple stakeholders’ perspectives. Chapter 2 introduces a broader state-level policymakers’ decision on renewable portfolio standards (RPS). The renewable portfolio standards is a state-mandated obligation that requires electric load-serving entities to distribute a certain percentage of electricity generated from renewable sources. I investigate the public preferences of RPS for residents in New Mexico in 2017. I find that households are willing to pay for an increase in RPS …

The Impact Of Exogenous Shocks And Heterogeneity On Demand And Preferences Environmental And Resource Goods In The Southwestern United States, Kara A. Walter

Economics ETDs

The 2018 IPCC report declared damages from climate change rapidly approaching. This dissertation consists of three empirical studies employing unique data sets and three econometric methods. First, I consider energy portfolios; I find that political affiliation is not the strongest driving factor of heterogeneity. Second, I examine the impact of observable characteristics in explaining preferences for the environment and regulation; I find opinion on climate change is an important factor and that omitting it results in changes to the significance of other factors. Finally, I study the impact of wildfires on visitation to national parks; I find that in the …

Dynamic And Integrated Models Of The Energy-Water-Land Nexus: Economic And Environmental Evaluation Of Policy Decisions, Elmira Kalhor

Economics ETDs

This dissertation contributes to the field of environmental and natural resource economics by employing data and hybrid simulation models to assess the economic and environmental outcomes of policy instruments applied to the complex systems of humans and the physical environment. Three integrated and dynamic models are developed to measure short- and long-term outcomes of price scenarios and resource capacity constraints.

The first chapter examines the balancing problem faced by a state-level policymaker. The Permian Basin is a source of significant revenue to the state of New Mexico; however, unconventional oil and gas production in this highly productive field requires large …

Three Essays On The Societal Impact Of Health Policies And Laws, Xuanhao He

Economics ETDs

This dissertation provides evidence to the two contentious debate over health policies and laws in the US, Medicaid expansion and sex offender registration and notification. In Chapter 2, I explore one key determinant of Medicaid take-up, the benefit of access to care proxied by the Medicaid-to-Medicare primary care physician payment ratio. Using a unique dataset of Medicaid physician reimbursement rates and the American Community Survey of 2010 – 14, I find that a 10-percentage-point increase in the payment ratio of a 30-minute new patient office visit will increase Medicaid enrollment among uninsured adults in poverty by more than 150,000. In …

A Systematic Investigation Of The Effect Of Wildfire Events And Risks On Property Values, Qiuhua Ma

Economics ETDs

Wildfires frequency and severity have been increasing in the western United States over the past few decades. This rising threat is caused by the accumulated fuel load, climate change, and the rapid expansion of housing in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Since most mitigation and suppression costs are borne by taxpayers, policy analysts seek both market (e.g., protection and suppression cost) and non-market cost estimates of wildfires. As one tool, the hedonic pricing method is commonly used to investigate wildfire effects on property values. There are a variety of hedonic studies investigating wildfire, with mixed and/or inconsistent results. Model estimates are …

Market And Non-Market Valuation Of Renewable Energy, Jamal Mamkhezri

Economics ETDs

This dissertation is an assessment of market and non-market valuation of renewable energy, specifically within the electricity sector. It contributes to the energy and economics literature through a battery of three chapters. This dissertation utilizes New Mexico as a case study, which is an economically poor and natural-resource rich state that produces and consumes electricity in the southwestern United States. It is also one of the four states that have adopted a policy for 100% clean energy by 2045.

The first chapter models state- and county-level economic (e.g., employment, economic output, etc.) and environmental (e.g., externality, health impact, water use, …

Migration, Return Migration, And Economic Development In Latin America, Jose R. Bucheli

Economics ETDs

This dissertation presents a collection of essays that study ways in which human mobility affects economic development in origin countries. It focuses on Latin America—a region historically connected to episodes of large-scale migration, recipient of significant remittance flows, and victim of sluggish economic growth. The first two chapters examine the effects of return migration from the United States on aggregate economic welfare and non-state violence in communities of origin in Mexico. The analysis is motivated by the historic reversal in the Mexico-U.S. migration flows in the early 2000s. The third chapter analyzes the interaction between remittances, migration, and secondary school …