Speaker 1: Paula Meloni

"Green Subsidies: unintended effects on accidents, injuries and welfare"

Abstract:

In an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions stemming from the transportation sector, countries such as Sweden have implemented aggressive subsidies and tax schemes aimed at bolstering demand for EVs, hybrids and small ICEs while dissuading purchases of dirtier vehicles. While this approach targets significant externalities arising from CO2 emissions, it fails to account for the external costs of vehicle weight. This project aims to study the effects of these subsidies and road taxes on serious injuries, mortality and welfare through their impact on vehicle choice in Sweden. To that end, we plan on estimating a discrete choice model as in Grieco, Murry, Pinske, et al. (2022) using Swedish administrative microdata for 2016-2020. We also intend to build a set of counterfactuals to explore policy alternatives such as weight taxes.

Speaker 2: Zac Pond

"Welfare effects of climate change on outdoor recreation: Evidence from campground reservations and cancellations"

Abstract:

Outdoor recreation comprises a large and growing sector of the economy. Consumer valuation of recreational activities, however, varies largely based on realized weather conditions. As such, the welfare generated from outdoor recreation will be directly affected by a changing climate. In this paper, we utilize rich data on campground reservations and cancellations combined with exogenous shocks in realized weather conditions to obtain revealed preference estimates of consumer valuation on realized weather. Consumer preferences exhibit an inverted-U shape relationship with temperature, with the disutility of extreme cold largely outweighing the disutility of extreme heat. We then combine our preference estimates with climate projections and a structural model of adaptation through recreation site substitution to estimate the welfare effects of climate change on outdoor recreation. We find that the welfare gains from decreased number of cold days more than offset the welfare losses from increased number of hot days, yielding a net increase in welfare.