
Insights / Research Brief•Jul 06, 2023
Carbon Prices and Forest preservation Over Space and Time in the Brazilian Amazon
Juliano J. Assunção, Lars Peter Hansen, Todd Munson, José A. Scheinkman
With modest transfers per ton of net CO2, Brazil would find it optimal to choose policies that produce substantial capture of greenhouse gasses in the next 30 years, suggesting that the management of tropical forests could play an important role on climate change mitigation in the near future.
Topics:
Energy & Environment, Financial Markets

Insights / Research Brief•Jun 22, 2023
Finance and Climate Resilience: Evidence From the Long 1950s US Drought
Raghuram G. Rajan, Rodney Ramcharan
Areas affected by the 1950s drought where access to credit was constrained experienced sharp declines in bank lending, net emigration, and population declines. In contrast, agricultural investment and long-run productivity increased in drought-exposed areas with access to credit, even allowing some of these areas
to surpass similar areas that were unaffected by the drought.
Topics:
Energy & Environment, Financial Markets

Insights / Research Brief•Jun 20, 2023
When Cryptomining Comes to Town: High Electricity-Use Spillovers to the Local Economy
Matteo Benetton, Giovanni Compiani, Adair Morse
Households and small businesses paid an extra $204 million and $92 million annually, respectively, in Upstate New York because of increased electricity consumption from cryptominers; while in China, where electricity prices are fixed, rationing of electricity in cities with cryptomining deteriorates wages and investments.
Topics:
Energy & Environment, Financial Markets

Insights / Research Brief•Jun 08, 2023
Green Tilts
Lubos Pastor, Robert F. Stambaugh, Lucian A. Taylor
The total amount of ESG-related tilts in institutional equity portfolios is about 6% of the institutions’ assets under management, a fraction fairly steady from 2012 to 2021; the industry tilts increasingly toward green stocks, due to only the largest institutions, while other institutions and households tilt increasingly toward brown stocks.
Topics:
Energy & Environment, Financial Markets

Insights / Research Brief•Feb 02, 2023
The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence From The Decline of Vultures in India
Eyal G. Frank, Anant Sudarshan
Human death rates increased by more than 4% in vulture-suitable districts after these birds nearly went extinct; additionally, evidence points to an increase in feral dog populations and rabies, along with diminished water quality in affected regions.
Topics:
Energy & Environment
INTERACTIVE INFOGRAPHIC
Here’s What Happens When A City in California Takes Up Automated Enforcement of Water Conservation Rules
Advances in remote sensing and real-time monitoring technology are rapidly and radically lowering the costs...
Topics:
Energy & Environment

Insights / Research Brief•Nov 18, 2022
On the Geographic Implications of Carbon Taxes
Bruno Conte, Klaus Desmet, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
A carbon tax rebated locally can, if not too large, increase the size of an economy by concentrating economic activity in its high-productivity, non-agricultural core, and by incentivizing immigration; these predictions hold for the United States and the European Union.
Topics:
Energy & Environment

Insights / Research Brief•Oct 05, 2022
Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China
Michael Greenstone, Shaoda Wang, Mark Buntaine, Guojun He, Mengdi Liu, Bing Zhang
Citizen engagement, especially public engagement through social media, leads to a significant improvement in government enforcement, and a reduction in air and water pollution.
Topics:
Energy & Environment