Policy interventions and unexpected economic shocks often result in unintended consequences. But these consequences are not always the result of unforeseen events or costly policies. Sometimes, they arise from the buildup of expectations, culminating in a single phenomenon. And even when individuals recognize the risks associated with certain phenomena, avoiding them can itself generate repercussions. All these consequences yield severe implications for social welfare, yet they often remain unaddressed, or costs remain unquantified. I explore these issues through three distinct cases, each shedding light on the diverse nature of consequences. In the first chapter, I study the unintended consequences of an opium cultivation ban in Afghanistan. As opium was the main cash crop, the ban upended the livelihoods of cultivators. But who bears the distributional effects, and how do they cope with them? Leveraging spatial variation in satellite-derived measures of opium cultivation along with household survey data, and employing a difference-in-differences framework, I find that extreme food insecurity emerged in the immediate aftermath of the ban but gradually diminished over time. The effect is pronounced only for households unable to transition their production to grains. Households cope with food insecurity by reducing food consumption, depleting livestock, and shifting production to wheat on arable-for-grain soils. In the second chapter, I examine the consequences of the parliamentary elections in India. Employing nationally representative survey data in a regression discontinuity design, I find that the ruling party’s landslide victory in 2019 had a significant negative effect on minorities’ sleeplessness, a proxy for mental health. The effect is concentrated particularly within the Muslim community, in districts with a historical background of Hindu-Muslim tensions, and districts characterized by high electoral competitiveness. In the third chapter, I study how air pollution impacts outdoor activity avoidance. Leveraging changes in local wind direction in an instrumental variable setup, I find a significant reduction in time spent outdoors on polluted days, driven by decreased engagement in employment. This effect is particularly pronounced among self-employed and casual laborers, suggesting substantial pecuniary costs. Workers choose to forgo daily wages to avoid pollution, acknowledging the financial consequences over the health consequences.