Time: 2022/10/18(Tue.), 9:00 – 10:30 am (Beijing Time)

Title:  Structural Transformation and Environmental Externalities

About the Speaker:

Maulik Jagnani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado Denver. Prior to joining University of Colorado Denver, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University. He graduated from Cornell University with a PhD in Applied Economics in 2019. His research focuses on microeconomic topics in environmental health and human capital in low-income countries.

Abstract:

Even as policymakers seek to encourage economic development by addressing misallocation due to frictions in labor markets, the associated production externalities -- such as air pollution -- remain unexplored. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show access to rural roads increases agricultural fires and particulate emissions. Farm labor exits are a likely mechanism responsible for the increase in agricultural fires: rural roads cause movement of workers out of agriculture and induce farmers to use fire -- a labor-saving but polluting technology -- to clear agricultural residue or to make harvesting less labor-intensive. Overall, the adoption of fires due to rural roads increases infant mortality rate by 5.5% in downwind locations.