Three essays on environmental economics in developing countries

Ordonez Morales, Pablo Jose

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Description

Title

Three essays on environmental economics in developing countries

Author(s)

Ordonez Morales, Pablo Jose

Issue Date

2021-07-12

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Baylis, Kathy

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Baylis, Kathy

Committee Member(s)

• Myers, Erica
• Winter-Nelson, Alex
• Ferraro, Paul

Department of Study

Agr & Consumer Economics

Discipline

Agricultural & Applied Econ

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• environmental economics
• deforestation
• forests
• community forest management
• forest management
• Mexico
• ejidos
• Colombia
• health
• air pollution
• particulate matter
• air quality
• Zambia
• maize
• coping strategies
• land use

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on research questions in environmental economics, in the context of developing countries. Specifically, I focus on two main themes. The first one is related to the relationship between agricultural productivity and deforestation, as well as the effect community forest management on deforestation. The second theme focuses on the effect that electricity generation from fossil fuel power plants has on air pollution, and the effects from air pollution on health. There are several unifying themes that bring together these seemingly unrelated questions. The first one is that the context in which these questions are empirically examined is that of developing countries. My main motivation in studying these environmental problems in developing countries is that these are problems that are much more acute in developing than in developed countries, and the external validity of the empirical analyses is going to be higher, since a much higher share of the world population lives in these countries than in developed ones. Secondly, the other unifying theme is the use of rigorous empirical strategies that allow me to estimate causal effects, including the use of machine learning both for prediction and causal inference. I believe all the identification strategies used in the different chapters provide novel methods of getting to causal estimates, and can also be applied to answer other research questions in settings where there is a similar source of exogenous variation. Of special interest is the use of machine learning for prediction, which allows for the generation of a credible counterfactual in cases where there are countrywide shocks. For the first chapter of this dissertation I focus on one of the causes of deforestation, and I study the relationship between agricultural productivity and deforestation. This is an important area of study because agriculture is a significant driver of deforestation (Curtis et al., 2018), and is the focus of significant amounts of international aid (Tierney et al., 2011). Additionally, the relationship between these two processes is theoretically ambiguous, making the need for empirical evidence more salient. This study contributes to this literature, by providing evidence of the effect that a negative and permanent shock to agricultural productivity has on deforestation in Zambia. For the second chapter of my dissertation, I turn my focus to the policies that can be implemented to prevent deforestation, focusing on what I believe is an understudied policy. In this chapter, I study community forest management (CFM) in Michoacan, Mexico, with the aim of estimating the effect that CFM has on deforestation in the short and medium term, as well as the effect it has on the distribution of land to different land uses within the communities. Additionally, I explore the mechanisms through which this reduction happens, and find evidence of a reduction in wildfires, which is an additional environmental benefit that I believe has not been found before. In the final chapter of my dissertation, I focus on a very important and common environmental problem in developing countries. I study the link between electricity generation from fossil fuel sources and air pollution in Colombia, and the effect that air pollution has on mental, respiratory, and cardiovascular health. I provide evidence of the effects that electricity generation from these sources has on ambient concentrations of particulate matter, and the effect that particulate matter has on mental and respiratory health. I can use these estimated effects to calculate the health costs associated with exposure to ambient levels of particulate matter, and provide an example of how these costs can be used to evaluate to policies that aim increase the air quality.

Graduation Semester

2021-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

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Copyright 2021 Pablo Ordonez

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