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Applied economic strategies to evaluate policies and environmental outcomes: case studies from immigration and ecosystem services
Get PDFMy dissertation title is, “Applied economic strategies to evaluate policies and environmental outcomes: case studies from immigration and ecosystem services.” The first two chapters of this dissertation concern the relationship between local immigration policies and societal welfare. The third chapter examines the impact of human activity on the environment and the valuation of ecosystem services. The first two chapters examine the outcomes accompanying the institutional adoption of inclusive and exclusive immigration policies. I am studying sanctuary cities as an example of inclusive institutions, where I seek to understand the benefits that inclusivity confers on cities, as well as the costs of exclusive approaches to immigration. In these studies, I test whether economic outcomes vary according to a county's openness to immigrants and determine whether these economic indicators drive the choice of immigration policy. To the extent that sanctuary cities exemplify inclusivity, sanctuary cities' economic characteristics may inform the transition of other institutions to greater inclusivity. The third chapter documents the economic consequences of eutrophication in one of North America's Great Lakes. It also seeks to quantify the broader value of the ecosystem services the lake provides using revealed preference methods. This strategy may, in turn, influence decision-making and incentivize conservation.
The first manuscript exploits quasi-experimental variation in the time and space of policy implementation to isolate the effects of local immigration policies on U.S. counties. To assess the impact of a county's openness to immigrants on the local economy, I use county-level data from the American Community Survey on economic indicators and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data detailing policy intensity. These policies range from areas where immigrants are strictly regulated via collaboration with ICE compared to those that provide protections. The study finds evidence that providing protections to immigrants increases overall per capita income, wages, GDP, and total employment, while unemployment experienced a decline. Meanwhile, the data show that punitive measures have no statistically significant effect on income and unemployment but adverse effects overall on GDP, total employment, and the proportion of the foreign-born population. These results support a model of immigration policy as an institution that can either support or suppress productivity. They confirm that immigrant labor is a positive driver of economic well-being at the local and regional levels.
The second manuscript builds upon the first study data to determine whether the selection of pro- or anti-immigrant policies is consistent with the narrative that economic conditions drive the choice of immigration policy. While also exploiting the variation in economic indicators across time and space to isolate the effects of these indicators on immigration policy choice by counties, this study finds no correlations between included economic variables and selecting immigrant-friendly policies. When using cross-sectional variation, the probability of choosing anti-immigrant policies increases with unemployment, non-citizen population, voting for a Republican president, and wages decline. All correlations between economic variables and policy outcomes disappear once fixed effects at the county level are included. This suggests that policy choice has a stronger relationship with longer-term trends and unobservables. Hence, the policy choice is not driven by short-term fluctuations in per capita income, unemployment, wages, and immigrant presence.
In the third manuscript, I examine the economic consequences of eutrophication in one of North America's Great Lakes by measuring whether property values decline due to harmful algal blooms in the urban and suburban areas of the city of Toledo, Ohio. I quantify the broader value of the ecosystem services that the lake provides. With housing sales from around the city of Cleveland, Ohio as a control group, I apply a difference-in-difference model to pre-matched data on housing prices, control for census tract as well as time fixed effects, and in one of the specifications, limit the data to houses sold repeatedly over the study period. Pre-trend tests suggest valid counterfactuals. Estimates show a decline in house prices of 13 and 25 percent in 2008 and 2011, respectively, and comparisons between locations near and far from HABs in Toledo show 9 and 24 percent declines in 2008 and 2011. Results imply an overall loss due to HABs, totaling close to 3 billion dollars during the study period
Chetvertichnye otlozheniya, podzemnye ľdy i Beregov Zapadnogo Taymyra (Quaternary deposits, ice complex and coastal dynamics of Western Tayimyr, in Russian)
No full textChemical, isotopic and gas composition of the first-year sea ice in 2013-2015 from the data of cores taken at the BARNEO drifting stations
Get PDFAs a result of the work performed at the BARNEO drifting stations (2013-2015 in the polar region of the Arctic ocean), a comprehensive testing was carried out and new data were obtained on the structure of one-year sea ice, its salinity, the distribution of ions of water-soluble salts, and the content of isotopes δ2H and δ18O within the ice thickness and snow falling on the ice surface. The composition of gas inclusions in the ice was also determined. The distribution of electrical conductivity across the ice thickness, determined by analysis of the cores with a length of 175-178 cm, is typical for such ice - it decreases from top to bottom with two maxima on the lower and upper boundaries of the ice. This is typical characteristic of the first-year sea-ice. Snow cover is characterized by a significant increase in electrical conductivity at the contact with the underlying ice. The chemical composition of the investigated ice-cores and the ratio between its components are similar to the composition of the sea water, although the concentrations of all components are lower than in the initial solution. The composition of gas inclusions in the ice does closely correspond to the atmospheric air, and it practically does not change in depth. The isotopic composition in the cores becomes heavier towards the bottom of the ice. This allows conclusion of a gradual decrease in the contribution of water with a light isotopic composition. The change in the isotopic composition along the ice depth, with the separation of zones with more light isotopes, reflects the changing temperature conditions of ice accumulation (with low isotopic fractionation at rapid freezing under the large temperature gradient) and regional features of the isotopic composition of sea waters in which the ice drift takes place. Salinization of the snow horizon lying on the ice surface provides a possibility of the sea salt transportation not only from surface of open water, but also from the surface of sea ice. This may be used for paleogeographic reconstructions in the Arctic using the analysis of the composition of massive vein ice
Permafrost hydrology in changing climatic conditions: seasonal variability of stable isotope composition in rivers in discontinuous permafrost
Get PDFRole of changing climatic conditions on permafrost degradation and hydrology was investigated in the transition zone between the tundra and forest ecotones at the boundary of continuous and discontinuous permafrost of the lower Yenisei River. Three watersheds of various sizes were chosen to represent the characteristics of the regional landscape conditions. Samples of river flow, precipitation, snow cover, and permafrost ground ice were collected over the watersheds to determine isotopic composition of potential sources of water in a river flow over a two year period. Increases in air temperature over the last forty years have resulted in permafrost degradation and a decrease in the seasonal frost which is evident from soil temperature measurements, permafrost and active-layer monitoring, and analysis of satellite imagery. The lowering of the permafrost table has led to an increased storage capacity of permafrost affected soils and a higher contribution of ground water to river discharge during winter months. A progressive decrease in the thickness of the layer of seasonal freezing allows more water storage and pathways for water during the winter low period making winter discharge dependent on the timing and amount of late summer precipitation. There is a substantial seasonal variability of stable isotopic composition of river flow. Spring flooding
corresponds to the isotopic composition of snow cover prior to the snowmelt. Isotopic composition of river flow during the summer period follows the variability of precipitation in smaller creeks, while the water flow of larger watersheds is influenced by the secondary evaporation of water temporarily stored in thermokarst lakes and bogs. Late summer precipitation determines the isotopic composition of texture ice within the active layer in tundra landscapes and the seasonal freezing layer in forested landscapes as well as the composition of the water flow during winter months
Redistribution of ions within the active layer and upper permafrost, Yamal, Russia
No full textA landslide-affected slope was chosen to study the ionic migration in the active layer and upper portion of permafrost. The research was conducted in two stages, in 1994 and 2001. Several boreholes, in dry and wet environments of the shearing surface of a 1989-landslide, were drilled. A background borehole on an undisturbed site was sampled as well. Each sample, collected from the core, underwent a conventional chemical cation-anion analysis. The results showed desalinization of the active layer and upper permafrost, which occurred in 7 years. Different migration rates noted for various salts determine change of ionic composition from marine pattern to continental, because mobile ions are washed away by surface and subsurface runoff, while the less mobile ones are accumulating in the upper portion of the active layer due to capillary rise and at the active layer base on a geochemical barrier
Permafrost aggradation and methane production in low accumulative laidas (tidal flats) of the Kara Sea
No full textIsotopic composition on ground ice in Western Yamal (Marre-Sale)
No full textThe profile of Quaternary sediments near Marre-Salle polar station, Western Yamal Peninsula, has large bodies of tabular ground ice. This profile is considered strata-typical and critical in understanding of paleogeographic conditions of the Arctic in Pleistocene-Holocene. However, interpretation of the profile is under discussion. It consists of two distinct strata: upper layer of 10–15 m thick represented by continental sediments and lower one with a thickness of more than 100 m represented by marine sediments. Lower layer of saline marine clays has lenses of tabular ground ice (more than 20 m thick), the bases of which are below the sea level. Upper continental layer is characterized by syngenetic ice-wedges of different generations. Samples were collected from ice-wedges and tabular ground ice for chemical and isotope analysis. The results of the analysis allow to reconstruct paleogeographic conditions of the sedimentation and freezing of Quaternary sediments. Heavy stable isotope content and relationship between oxygen and hydrogen isotopes show that the ice bodies in the lower layer were formed in-situ within the ground. In the upper layer, heavier isotope content found in younger ice-wedges relative to the old-generation wedges. Formation of massive syngenetic Upper-Pleistocene ice-wedges occurred in conditions of colder winter temperatures than at present. Syngenetic Holocene wedges were formed after Holocene Optimum under winter conditions similar to present. Younger ice wedges formed smaller polygons, were smaller and often were developing in the locations of the degraded old wedges. Results of the isotope analysis of various types of ground ice near Marre-Sale allow reconstructing changes of marine sedimentation to continental one around Kargino time (MIS 3) and changes in climatic conditions in Arctic in Late Pleistocene and Holocene
Rates of coastal destruction in areas of tabular ground ice occurrence in the western Russian Arctic
No full textTabular ground ice bodies are widely spread on Eurasian and North American Arctic plains. Exposed tabular ground ice in coastal bluffs favors the activation of thermal abrasion and thermal denudation, which in turn causes increasing coastal destruction rates. Thermo-denudation under conditions of ground ice exposures includes thawing of ice and frozen sediments along retreating headwalls of retrogressive thaw slumps and their constant enlargement. Thermo-cirques and thermo-terraces are two basic landform types that either feature channelized or broad open outlets, depending on the initial ice body outcrop by the denudation processes inland or in the retreating coastal bluffs.
We study key-sites on Kolguev Island (Barents Sea) and on Yugorsky Peninsula (Kara Sea), continuing and extending earlier research efforts on coastal dynamics in the region.
New data on thermo-denudation and thermo-abrasion rates for these key-sites have been obtained using a set of multi-temporal satellite images of high and very-high spatial resolution covering the period from 2002 to 2016.
For orthorectification purposes of imagery collected prior to TanDEM-X acquisitions, we used an edited version of the 12 m TanDEM-X DEM. Along erosive coastline segments the former relief situation was reconstructed through extrapolation of coastal bluff edge elevation values and restoration of the coastal plain relief towards the sea.
On the western coast of Kolguev Island, average coastal bluff retreat rates between 2002 and 2012 varied from 1.7 to 2.4 m/year, while averaged rates of thermo-cirques headwalls retreat were 2.6 m/year. Maximum rates at some sections increased up to 14.5-15.1 m/year in the recent past.
High rates of thermo-denudation increase were not only observed on western Kolguev Island, but also on the Yugorsky Peninsula, were rates raised up to 13 m/year in recent years. Activation of thermo-denudation is also noted in other parts of Kara Sea coasts and were generally correlated with changing environmental factors, particularly expressed in an increase on the thaw index during recent years
NEW PERMAFROST FEATURE – DEP CRATER IN CENTRAL YAMAL (WEST SIBERIA, RUSIA) AS A RESPONSE TO LOCAL CLIMATE FLUCTUATIONS
No full textNEW PERMAFROST FEATURE – DEP CRATER IN CENTRAL YAMAL (WEST SIBERIA, RUSIA) AS A RESPONSE TO LOCAL CLIMATE FLUCTUATIONS
Get PDFThis paper is based on field data obtained during short visits to a newly formed permafrost feature in a form of relatively narrow, deep crater. Excluding impossible and improbable versions of the crater’s development, the authors conclude that it originated from warmerground temperatures and an increase in unfrozen water content, leading to an increase in pressure from gas emissions from permafrost and ground ice. This conclusion is also supported by known processes in the palaeo-geography of Yamal lakes and recent studies of gas-hydrate behavior and subsea processes in gas-bearing provinces
