| SES # | topics | readings |
|---|---|---|
| General Topics | ||
| 1 | Causation and Empirical Strategies to Estimate Causal Relationships |
Required Readings Cook, R. Dennis. "Smoking and Lung Cancer." In R. A. Fisher: An Appreciation. Edited by S. Fienberg and D. Hinkley. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1980, pp. 182-191. ISBN: 038790476X. Cook, Thomas D., and Donald T. Campbell. "Causal Inference and the Language of Experimentation." Chapter 1 in Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1979, pp. 1-36. ISBN: 0395307902.Freedman, David A. "Statistical Models and Shoe Leather." Sociological Methodology 21 (1991): 291-313. Holland, Paul W. "Statistics and Causal Inference." Journal of the American Statistical Association 81 (December 1986): 945-960. Angrist, Joshua, and Alan Krueger. "Empirical Strategies in Labor Economics." Chapter 23 in The Handbook of Labor Economics. Edited by O. Ashenfelter and D. Card. Vol. 3. North Holland, Netherlands: Elsevier Science Pub Co, 1999. ISBN: 0444501894.Optional Readings Woodbury, Stephen A., and Robert G. Spiegelman. "Bonuses to Workers and Employers to Reduce Unemployment: Randomized Trials in Illinois." American Economic Review 77, no. 4 (1987): 513-530. |
| 2 | Externalities, Pigovian Taxes, and the Coasian Solution |
Required Readings Coase, Ronald H. "The Problem of Social Cost." The Journal of Law and Economics 3 (October 1960): 1-44. Laffont, Jean-Jacques. Chapter 1 in Fundamentals of Public Economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. ISBN: 0262121271.Optional Readings Varian, Hal. Chapter 24 in Microeconomic Analysis. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Norton, 1992. ISBN: 0393957357(Or your favorite microeconomic theory text.) |
| 3 | Defining Welfare Changes and Cost-Benefit Analysis |
Required Readings Laffont, Jean-Jacques. Chapter 6 in Fundamentals of Public Economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. ISBN: 0262121271. Optional Readings Varian, Hal. Chapter 7 in Microeconomic Analysis. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Norton, 1992. ISBN: 0393957357.(Or substitute your favorite microeconomic theory text.) |
| Environmental Economics | ||
| 4 | Valuation of Nonmarket Goods with an Emphasis on Environmental Goods: Hedonic Method (Theory) |
Required Readings Freeman III., A Myrick. "Property Value Models." Chapter 11 in The Measurement of Environmental and Resource Values. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2003. ISBN: 1891853627. ———. "Hedonic Wage Models." Chapter 12 in The Measurement of Environmental and Resource Values. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2003. ISBN: 1891853627. Roback, Jennifer. "Wages, Rents and the Quality of Life." Journal of Political Economy 90, no. 6 (1982): 1257-1278. Rosen, Sherwin. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition." Journal of Political Economy 82 (1974): 34-55. Optional Readings Bartik, Timothy J. "The Estimation of Demand Parameters in Hedonic Price Models." Journal of Political Economy 95 (1987): 81-88. Brown, James N., and Harvey Rosen. "On the Estimation of Structural Hedonic Price Models." Econometrica 50, no. 3 (1982): 765-768. Ekeland, Ivar, James J. Heckman, and Lars Nesheim. "Identification and Estimation of Hedonic Models." Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming (2004). Rosen, Sherwin. "The Theory of Equalizing Difference." In Handbook of Labor Economics. Vol. 1. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1986, pp. 641-92. |
| 5 | Valuation of Nonmarket Goods with an Emphasis on Environmental Goods: Hedonic Method (Applications to Housing Markets) |
Required Readings Chay, Kenneth, and Michael Greenstone. "Does Air Quality Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market." Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 2 (April 2005). Cook, Thomas D., and Donald T. Campbell. Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1979, pp. 137-146. ISBN: 0395307902.(This provides a brief review of regression discontinuity designs.) Optional Readings Black, Sandra. "Do Better Schools Matter? Parental Valuation of Elementary Education." Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, no. 2 (1999): 577-99. Greenstone, Michael , and Justin Gallagher. "Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program." Mimeograph. 2005. Smith, V. Kerry, and Ju-Chin Huang. "Can Markets Value Air Quality? A Meta-Analysis of Hedonic Property Value Models." Journal of Political Economy 103 (1995): 209-27. |
| 6 | Valuation of Nonmarket Goods with an Emphasis on Environmental Goods: Hedonic Method (Applications to the Value of a Statistical Life) |
Required Readings Thaler, Richard, and Sherwin Rosen. "The Value of Saving a Life: Evidence from the Labor Market." In Household Production and Consumption. Edited by Nestor E. Terleckyj. Cambridge, MA: NBER, 1976, pp. 265-298. ISBN: 0870145150. Ashenfelter, Orley, and Michael Greenstone. "Using Mandated Speed Limits to Measure the Value of a Statistical Life." Journal of Political Economy 112, no. 1, pt. 2 (2004). Black, Dan A., and Kneisner, Thomas J. "On the Measurement of Job Risk in Hedonic Wage Models." Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 27, no. 3 (December 2003): 205-20. Optional Readings Viscusi, W. Kip. "The Value of Risks to Life and Health." Journal of Economic Literature 31 (1993): 1912-1946. Johanneson, Magnus, Per-Olov Johansson, Bengt Kristom, and Tore Soderqvist. "Valuing Changes in Health: Theoretical and Empirical Issues." In Current Issues in Environmental Economics. Edited by Johansson, et. al. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, pp. 79-97. ISBN: 0719038456. |
| 7 | Valuation of Nonmarket Goods with an Emphasis on Environmental Goods: The Health Effects Approach (Theory) |
Required Readings Freeman III., A Myrick. "Valuing Longevity and Health." Chapter 10 in The Measurement of Environmental and Resource Values. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2003. ISBN: 1891853627. Optional Readings Grossman, Michael. "The Human Capital Model." Chapter 7 in Handbook of Health Economics. Vol. 1A. Edited by Culyer and Newhouse. New York, NY: Elsevier, 2000. ISBN: 0444504702. |
| 8 | Valuation of Nonmarket Goods with an Emphasis on Environmental Goods: The Health Effects Approach (Estimating Dose-Response Relationships) |
Required Readings Chay, Kenneth, and Michael Greenstone. "The Impact of Air Pollution on Infant Mortality: Evidence from Geographic Variation in Pollution Shocks Induced by a Recession." Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 3 (2003). ———. "Air Quality, Infant Mortality, and the Clean Air Act of 1970." NBER Working Paper #10053, 2003. Zeger, S. L., F. Dominici, and J. Samet. "Harvesting-Resistant Estimates of Air Pollution Effects on Mortality." Epidemiology 10, no. 2 (March 1999): 171-5. Chay, Kenneth, Carlos Dobkin, and Michael Greenstone. "The Clean Air Act of 1970 and Adult Mortality." Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 27, no. 3 (2003): 279-300. (With Kenneth Chay and Carlos Dobkin). Pope, C. A., R. T. Burnett, M. J. Thun, E. E. Calle, D. Krewski, K. Ito, and G. D. Thurston. "Lung cancer, cardiopulmonary mortality, and long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution." Journal of the American Medical Association 287, no. 9 (2002): 1132-41. Optinal Readings Dockery, Douglas W., et. al. "An Association Between Air Pollution and Mortality in Six U.S. Cities." The New England Journal of Medicine 328, no. 24 (1993): 1753-9. Schwartz, Joel. "Harvesting and Long Term Exposure Effects in the Relation between Air Pollution and Mortality." American Journal of Epidemiology 151 (2000): 440-8. Currie, Janet, and Matthew Neidell. "Air Pollution and Infant Health: What Can We Learn from California' Recent Experience." NBER Working Paper #10251, 2004. |
| 9 | Valuation of Nonmarket Goods with an Emphasis on Environmental Goods: The Heath Effects Approach (Empirical Estimates of Avoidance Behavior) |
Optional Readings Neidell, Matthew. "Public Information and Avoidance Behavior: Do People Respond to Smog Alerts?" CISES Working Paper #24, 2005. ———. "Incorporating Behavior into Biological Models: Understanding the Health Effects of Ozone." CISES Working Paper #25, 2005. |
| 10 | Valuation of Nonmarket Goods with an Emphasis on Environmental Goods: The Household Production Function Approach |
Required Readings Dickie, Mark. "Defensive Behavior and Damage Cost Methods." Chapter 11 in A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. ISBN: 0792364988. Hausman, Jerry A., Gregory K. Leonard, and Daniel McFadden. "A Utility-Consistent, Combined Discrete Choice and Count Data Model: Assessing Recreational Use Losses Due to Natural Resource Damage." Journal of Public Economics 56, no. 1 (January 1995): 1-30. Optional Readings Dickie, Mark, and Shelby Gerking. "Willingness to Pay for Ozone Control: Inferences from the Demand for Medical Care." Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 21, no. 1 (July 1991): 1-16. Small, Kenneth, and Harvey Rosen. "Applied Welfare Economics with Discrete Choice Models." Econometrica 49, no. 1 (1981): 105-130. Smith, V. Kerry. "Household Production Functions and Environmental Benefit Estimation." Chapter 3 in Measuring the Demand for Environmental Quality. Edited by John B. Braden and Charles D. Kolstad. North Holland, Netherlands: Elsevier Science Pub Co, 1991, pp. 41-76. ISBN: 0444888772. |
| 11 | Valuation of Nonmarket Goods with an Emphasis on Environmental Goods: Locational Equilibrium and Other "Structural" Approaches |
Required Readings Sieg, Holger, V. Kerry Smith, H. Spencer Banzhaf, and Randy Walsh. "Estimating the General Equilibrium Benefits of Large Changes in Spatially Delineated Public Goods." International Economic Review 45, no. 4, (November 2004): 1047-1077. Bayer, Patrick, Nat Keohane, and Christopher Timmins. "Migration and Hedonic Valuation: The Case of Air Quality." Manuscript. 2005. Optional Readings Epple, Dennis, and Holger Sieg. "Estimating Equilibrium Models of Local Jurisdictions." Journal of Political Economy 107, no. 4 (1999): 645-681. |
| 12 | Environmental Policy Instruments: Prices vs. Quantities, Permits and Trading |
Prices vs. Quantities - Required Readings Weitzman, Martin L. "Prices vs. Quantities." Review of Economic Studies 41 (1974): 477-491. Prices vs. Quantities - Optional Readings Williams, Roberton C. "Prices vs. Quantities vs. Tradable Quantities." NBER Working Paper #9283, 2002. Permits and Trading - Required Readings Joskow, Paul L., and Richard Schmalensee. "The Market for Sulfur Dioxide Emissions." American Economics Review 88 (1998): 669-685. Permits and Trading - Optional Readings Joskow, Paul L., and Richard Schmalensee. "The Political Economy of Market-Based Environmental Policy: The U.S. Acid Rain Program." Journal of Law and Economics 41 (1998): 37-83. |
| 13 | Environmental Policy Instruments: Public Goods and Externalities, Inspections and Fines, Voluntary Regulations |
Public Goods and Externalities - Required Readings Coase, Ronald H. "The Problem of Social Cost." The Journal of Law and Economics 3 (October 1960): 1-44. (Chapter 3 in Economics of the Environment: Selected Readings. Edited by Robert N. Stavins. 4th ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2000. ISBN: 0393975231.) Goodheart, Adam. "Something in the Air." The New York Times, February 8, 2004. Inspections and Fines - Optional Readings Cohen, Mark A. "Monitoring and Enforcement of Environmental Policy." Mimeograph, Vanderbilt University. 1998. Voluntary Regulations TRI Papers, forthcoming. |
| 14 | Costs of Environmental Regulations: Indirect and Direct Measurement, Double Dividend Hypothesis |
Indirect Measurement of the Costs - Required Readings Greenstone, Michael. "The Impacts of Environmental Regulations on Industrial Activity: Evidence from the 1970 and 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments and the Census of Manufacturers." Journal of Political Economy 110, no. 6 (2002). Indirect Measurement of the Costs - Optional Readings Henderson, J. Vernon. "Effects of Air Quality Regulation." American Economic Review 86 (1996): 789-813. Direct Measurement of the Costs - Required Readings Gollop, Frank M., and Mark J. Roberts. "Environmental Regulation and Productivity Growth: The Case of Fossil-Fueled Electric Power Generations." Journal of Political Economy 91, no. 4: 654-74. ———. "Cost-Minimizing Regulation of Sulfur Emissions: Regional Gains in Electric Power." Review of Economics and Statistics 67, no. 1: 81-90. Direct Measurement of the Costs - Optional Readings Jorgenson, Dale W., and Peter J. Wilcoxen. "Environmental Regulation and U.S. Economic Growth." Rand Journal of Economics 21 (1990): 314-40. Margolis, Michael, Daniel E. Osgood, and John A. List. "Measuring the Preemption of Regulatory Takings in the US Endangered Species Act: Evidence From a Natural Experiment." Manuscript. 2005. Double Dividend Hypothesis - Required Readings Goulder, Lawrence H. "Environmental Policy Making in a Second-Best Setting." Journal of Applied Economics 1, no. 2 (1998). |
| 15 | Policy Application: Climate Change |
Required Readings Deschenes, Olivier, and Michael Greenstone. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Output and Random Fluctuations in Weather." 2004. Schlenker, Wolfram, W. Michael Hanemann, and Anthony C. Fisher. "Will U.S. Agriculture Really Benefit from Global Warming? Accounting for Irrigation in the Hedonic Approach." American Economic Review, forthcoming (2005). Optional Readings Mendelsohn, Robert, William D. Nordhaus, and Daigee Shaw. "The Impact of Global Warming on Agriculture: A Ricardian Approach." American Economic Review 84 (1994): 753-771. |
| 16 | Topics at the Intersection of Environmental and Development Economics |
Required Readings Jayachandran, Seema. "The Effect of Air Quality on Infant Mortality During Indonesia's Massive Wildfires in 1997." Manuscript. 2005. Pitt, Mark M., Mark Rosenzweig, and Nazmul Hassan. "The Gender Division of Labor, Indoor Air Pollution and Adult and Child Health in Low-Income Countries." Manuscript. 2005. Optional Readings Somanathan, J. E., and T. Sterner. "Environmental Policy Instruments and Institutions in Developing Countries." Working Paper Series. Initiative for Policy Dialogue (Columbia University). Wang and Wheeler. "Endogenous Enforcement and Effectiveness of China's Pollution Levy System." Manuscript. 2000. Baland, Jean-Marie, Pranab Bardhan, Sanghamitra Das, Dilip Mookherjee, and Rinki Sarkar. "The Environmental Impact of Poverty: Evidence from Firewood Collection in Rural Nepal." 2003. Galiani, Sebastian, Paul Gertler, and Ernesto Schargrodsky. "Water for Life: The Impact of Privatization of Water Services on Child Mortality." Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 1 (2005): 83-119. Jalan, Somanathan, and Chaudhuri. "Awareness and the Demand for Environmental Quality: Drinking Water in Urban India." Manuscript. 2004. |
| Regulation of Other Markets | ||
| 17 | Regulation of Financial Markets |
Required Readings Greenstone, Michael, Paul Oyer, and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen. "Mandated Disclosure, Stock Returns, and the 1964 Securities Act." MIT Department of Economics Working Paper, no. 04-33 (2004). Rajan, Raghuram G., and Luigi Zingales. "Financial Dependence and Growth." American Economic Review 88, no. 3 (1998): 559-586. Optional Readings Bentson, George J. "Required Disclosure and the Stock Market: An Evaluation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934." American Economic Review 63 (1973): 132-155. Shleifer, Andre, and D. Wolfenzon. "Investor Protection and Equity Markets." Journal of Financial Economics 66: 3-27. Daines, Robert, and Charles M. Jones. "Liquidity, Asymmetric Information and Mandatory Disclosure: The Impact of the 1934 Act." Mimeograph, Columbia University. 2004. Bushee, B. J., and C. Leuz. "Economic Consequences of SEC Disclosure Regulation: Evidence from the OTC Bulletin Board." Journal of Accounting and Economics, forthcoming (2005). Stigler. "Public Regulation of the Securities Markets." Journal of Business (April 64). (See also articles by Friend and Herman, Robbins and Werner, and reply by Stigler in Journal of Business, Oct. 64.) La Porta, R., F. Lopez-de Silanes, A. Shleifer, and R. W. Vishny. "Investor Protection and Corporate Valuation." Journal of Finance 57: 1147-1170. Smith, and Whaley. "Assessing the Costs of Regulation: Dual Trading." Journal of Law and Economics (April 94). |
| 18 | Regulation of Labor Markets: US Labor Market Regulations, Regulation of Labor Markets in Europe and Developing Countries Workplace Safety Regulations |
U.S. Labor Market Regulations - Optional Readings Jolls, Christine and J.J. Prescott. "Disaggregating Employment Protection: The Case of Disability Discrimination." NBER Working Paper #10740, 2004. Dismissal at Will Angrist, Josh and Adriana Kugler. "Protective or Counter Protective? Labor Market Institutions and the Effect of Immigration on EU Natives." The Economics Journal 113 (2003): F302-F331. Bertrand, Marianne, and Francis Kramarz. "Does entry regulation hinder job creation? Evidence from the French retail industry." Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, no. 4 (2002): 1369-1413. De Coninck, Raphael and Marcello Estevao. "The 35-Hour Workweek in France: Who Suffers from it? Working paper, 2004. Nickell, Stephen and Richard Layard. "Labor Market Institutions and Economics Performance." Handbook of Labor Economics 3C (1999): 3029-3084. |
| 19 | Offsetting Behavior in the Context of Traffic Safety Advertising Other Regulations |
Offsetting Behavior in the Context of Traffic Safety - Optional Readings Cohen, Alma, and Liran Einav. "The Effect of Mandatory Seat Belt Laws on Driving Behavior and Traffic Fatalities." The Review of Economics and Statistics 85, no. 4 (2003): 828-843. Peltzman, Sam. "The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation." Journal of Political Economy 83 (1975): 667-725. Advertising - Optional Readings Milyo, Jeffrey, and Joel Waldfogel. "The Effect of Price Advertising on Prices: Evidence from 44 Liquormart." American Economic Review (December 1999). Rizzo, and Zeckhauser. "Advertising and Entry: The Case of Physician Services." Journal of Political Economy (June 1990). Other Regulations - Optional Readings Gale, William G. "Public Policies and Private Pension Contributions." Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 26, no. 3, part 2: 710-732. Brasselle, Anne-Sophie, Frederic Gaspart, and Jean-Philippe Platteau. "Land Tenure Security and Investment Incentives: Puzzling Evidence from Burkina Faso." Journal of Development Economics 67 (2002): 373-418. |
| 20-26 | Student Presentations | |
