Date of Award

Spring 5-6-2019

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Economics

First Advisor

H Spencer Banzhaf

Second Advisor

Kyle Mangum

Third Advisor

Daniel Kreisman

Fourth Advisor

John Winters

Abstract

This dissertation has two essays. The first studies migration patterns in the U.S. and the relationship between migration patterns and energy use and carbon emissions. It uses a two-city model of energy use and household migration to analyze emission implications from city level green policies. Per-household emissions are calculated for the largest 49 MSA’s in the U.S. and data on migration patterns used to assign substitute locations to migrating households. Results show large differences in net carbon emissions from migration, which has implications for a wide range of policies affecting migration decisions. The second essay studies how school quality is assigned to properties through various methods. It first replicates methods in the literature, such as assignment by distance and district means, and adds new methods to assign measures of school quality to census blocks. Next, these assignments are compared to a new dataset of school assignment to determine accuracy. Both distance matching and assignment by district means are shown to be relatively inaccurate methods of assignment. The accuracy also varies over space and district size.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/14386673

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