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Three Essays in Environmental Economics and Impacted Evaluation.

Record Type:	Language materials, manuscript : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Three Essays in Environmental Economics and Impacted Evaluation./
Author:	Cheng, Yu Shing Samuel.
Description:	1 online resource (157 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-04, Section: B.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International85-04B.
Subject:	Ecology. -
Online resource:	click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9798380595186

Three Essays in Environmental Economics and Impacted Evaluation.
Cheng, Yu Shing Samuel.

Three Essays in Environmental Economics and Impacted Evaluation. - 1 online resource (157 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-04, Section: B.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Ohio State University, 2023.

Includes bibliographical references

The natural environment provides numerous ecosystem services like water purification, climate change mitigation, the provision of fuel, food, and fodder, and support for biodiversity to communities globally. Therefore, it is important that we understand how we can better conserve vital natural resources for which no substitutes exist. While programs are designed to address conservation issues, they may not be perfect and be able to achieve their respective policy goals. Impact evaluation on these programs is a major tool to examine if a conservation program leads to desirable impacts and results to the intended outcome.Combining microeconomic theory with geospatial data, in my dissertation, I assess the impact of interventions aimed at protecting natural resources and examine the consequences of environmental degradation on human health. The first chapter, "Broken Forests: Deforestation and Forest Fragmentation Increase Malaria Incidence among Young Children in Rural Liberia," evaluates the impact of forest fragmentation on malaria in a rural Sub-Saharan Africa setting, where the burden of malaria is high. I combine high-resolution satellite data on forests with individual-level data on malaria incidence among children under five years of age in rural Liberia to test whether forest fragmentation increases malaria incidence. Using cross-sectional hierarchical linear and fixed effects panel data models, I find that a 1-ha increase in fragmented forest resulted in, on average, 2-4 children more with malaria within a sampled cluster, ceteris paribus. This result suggests that effective anti-malaria efforts need to also focus on conserving forests, specifically reducing forest fragmentation.In the second chapter, "Does establishing commercial forest tenure exacerbate deforestation? The evidence from Liberia", I investigate the impact of commercial property rights on the forest cover loss in a developing country context. The chapter exploited the 2006 forest policy reconstruction in Liberia, where the Liberian government re-established the commercial logging concessions. Using a spatially explicit panel dataset between 2000 and 2017 and various panel data estimators, I examine the impact of granting Forest Management Contracts (FMCs) on the amount of forest cover in Liberia. The result shows that FMCs can retain 3.87 percentage-point more forest cover by effectively protecting working lands from population pressure. It suggests that establishing commercial logging concessions, at least in the Liberian context, does not cause any negative impact on forest conservation.In the third chapter, "Changing Landscapes: How farm certification alters cover crop coverage in Minnesota," I switch my focus to the United States, a developed country, and evaluate the impact of a state water-quality improvement program on the adoption of cover crops, which is one way to mitigate agricultural water pollution. Specifically, I construct field-level panel data of cover crops between 2008 and 2019 by combining publicly available cropland data and official Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program (MAWQCP) records. Based on a staggered difference-in-differences design, the results show that the upper bound of the impact of MAWQCP on cover crop coverage is - 0.93 percentage points. My findings indicate that the program, in its current state, may not be effective in promoting the use of cover crops.Apart from providing evidence from understudied locations and interventions, my dissertation offers useful insights into the design of conservation policies.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2024

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9798380595186Subjects--Topical Terms:

575279
Ecology.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Natural environmentIndex Terms--Genre/Form:

554714
Electronic books.

Three Essays in Environmental Economics and Impacted Evaluation.
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520 $a The natural environment provides numerous ecosystem services like water purification, climate change mitigation, the provision of fuel, food, and fodder, and support for biodiversity to communities globally. Therefore, it is important that we understand how we can better conserve vital natural resources for which no substitutes exist. While programs are designed to address conservation issues, they may not be perfect and be able to achieve their respective policy goals. Impact evaluation on these programs is a major tool to examine if a conservation program leads to desirable impacts and results to the intended outcome.Combining microeconomic theory with geospatial data, in my dissertation, I assess the impact of interventions aimed at protecting natural resources and examine the consequences of environmental degradation on human health. The first chapter, "Broken Forests: Deforestation and Forest Fragmentation Increase Malaria Incidence among Young Children in Rural Liberia," evaluates the impact of forest fragmentation on malaria in a rural Sub-Saharan Africa setting, where the burden of malaria is high. I combine high-resolution satellite data on forests with individual-level data on malaria incidence among children under five years of age in rural Liberia to test whether forest fragmentation increases malaria incidence. Using cross-sectional hierarchical linear and fixed effects panel data models, I find that a 1-ha increase in fragmented forest resulted in, on average, 2-4 children more with malaria within a sampled cluster, ceteris paribus. This result suggests that effective anti-malaria efforts need to also focus on conserving forests, specifically reducing forest fragmentation.In the second chapter, "Does establishing commercial forest tenure exacerbate deforestation? The evidence from Liberia", I investigate the impact of commercial property rights on the forest cover loss in a developing country context. The chapter exploited the 2006 forest policy reconstruction in Liberia, where the Liberian government re-established the commercial logging concessions. Using a spatially explicit panel dataset between 2000 and 2017 and various panel data estimators, I examine the impact of granting Forest Management Contracts (FMCs) on the amount of forest cover in Liberia. The result shows that FMCs can retain 3.87 percentage-point more forest cover by effectively protecting working lands from population pressure. It suggests that establishing commercial logging concessions, at least in the Liberian context, does not cause any negative impact on forest conservation.In the third chapter, "Changing Landscapes: How farm certification alters cover crop coverage in Minnesota," I switch my focus to the United States, a developed country, and evaluate the impact of a state water-quality improvement program on the adoption of cover crops, which is one way to mitigate agricultural water pollution. Specifically, I construct field-level panel data of cover crops between 2008 and 2019 by combining publicly available cropland data and official Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program (MAWQCP) records. Based on a staggered difference-in-differences design, the results show that the upper bound of the impact of MAWQCP on cover crop coverage is - 0.93 percentage points. My findings indicate that the program, in its current state, may not be effective in promoting the use of cover crops.Apart from providing evidence from understudied locations and interventions, my dissertation offers useful insights into the design of conservation policies.
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