Variability in Jury Awards for Noneconomic Damages in Motor Vehicle Negligence Cases
By Max Cherman I analyze the efficiency of jury awards for noneconomic compensatory damages awarded to automobile accident victims suffering nonfatal injuries bringing motor vehicle negligence tort claims. Data from 1002 Jury Verdict Research (JVR) case abstracts was narrowed down to 218 observations of plaintiffs receiving noneconomic damages awards at trials involving motor vehicle negligence […]
Responses to EU Carbon Pricing: The Effect of Carbon Emissions Allowances on Renewable Energy Development in Advanced and Transitional EU Members
By John Dearing Using electricity price, generation, installed capacity, and carbon price data from the European Union from January 2015 to December 2018, this study finds that the carbon pricing in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) incentivizes electricity sector carbon emission reductions through renewable energy deployment only for economically advanced EU members. […]
Global Warming and Obesity: The Effect of Ambient Temperature on BMI
By Aakash Jain Previous research has shown that ambient temperature affects human metabolism and behavior. Inspired by these findings, this study examines the effect of lagged annual temperatures in the United States on average reported BMI. The results indicate that higher temperatures in the future will lead to increases in average BMI. A conservative estimate […]
The Impact of Environmental Disamenities on Property Values: Evaluating the Municipal Fringe
By Ryan B. Hoecker This paper analyzes the municipal fringe of cities in Eastern North Carolina between 2006-2016, and how the values of individual properties on the outskirts can fluctuate after they are incorporated within a city. A large portion of the research process consisted of manually recreating annexation ordinances from scanned photocopies on ArcGIS, […]
The Effect of Federal Regulations on the Outcomes of Auctions for Oil and Gas Leaseholds
By Artur Shikhaleev This thesis attempts to analyze the impact of the differences in regulatory frameworks that govern state-owned and federally-owned lands on the outcomes of auctions for oil and natural gas leaseholds in the state of New Mexico. The analysis tries to isolate the effect of ownership by controlling for auction structure, leasehold characteristics, and […]
Shale Gas Development and Housing Value in the United Kingdom: Impact of the 13th Onshore Licensing, 2008
By Esther Lho While shale gas is a prospective energy source, it is known to bring environmental deficits to the drilling neighborhood. Because of such concerns, property values fluctuate upon the possibility of shale gas fracturing. This paper examines the change in housing prices before and after the release of the 13th onshore oil and […]
Exceeding the Threshold: Analysis of Public Information Transfer using Instrumental Variables
By Gabrielle Inder This paper examines how information transfer about contamination levels found at brownfield sites capitalizes into nearby property values. More specifically, a hedonic model is used to test the impact on housing transaction prices when a binary measure (i.e. exceeding a threshold or not) or a continuous measure (i.e. chemical levels) is used. […]
The Role of Income in Environmental Justice: A National Analysis of Race, Housing Markets, and Air Pollution
By Christopher Brown Historically, evidence has shown that minority populations in the United States suffer a disproportionate burden of pollution compared to whites. This study examines whether this burden could be the result of income disparities between whites and minorities, acting through the housing market. We look at 324 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA’s) in the […]
Race and Pollution Correlation as Predictor of Environmental Injustice
By Marissa Meir Environmental injustice is a theory that claims distributions of toxic, hazardous and dangerous waste facilities are disproportionately located in low-income communities of color. This paper empirically demonstrates an alternative cause of environmental injustice- that low-income minorities are less likely to receive sizeable enough loans to buy a house in a cleaner area. […]
