Below are my projects that are either in review or near the submission stage. They are in the order that I expect to wrap them up. Please reach out with any questions or comments; I’d appreciate hearing from you.
The random filter identification strategy
The random filter identification strategy estimates a treatment effect by removing variation in treatment that is driven by unobservable confounding factors. This filtering is feasible when the treatment effect mechanism is exogenous and a mediator variable reflecting this mechanism is observable. The approach permits identification of an ATE or ATT in settings where the assumptions underlying other strategies are not met or yield a LATE. In this paper, I derive the identification assumptions for the random filter and demonstrate its applicability to economics research. My empirical example uses the random filter to measure the impact of the launch of a free-to-use mobile banking platform in El Salvador and explores the mechanisms that caused a push for financial inclusion to be unsuccessful.
Keywords: random filter, front door criterion, identification strategies, financial inclusion, digital banking, mobile money, Chivo Wallet
In Review. [Working Paper] [Code and data available after publication] [Lecture Slides] [Simulation Code]
Trading joules for fish? Opportunity costs in the adaptive management of regulated rivers
With Lucas Bair, Matthew Reimer, Michael Springborn, and Charles Yackulic
Forgoing the traditional economic benefits of dam management to utilize designer flows—ecologically motivated releases of water into highly regulated river segments—can be an effective but costly approach to conserving threatened species. In this paper, we perform an integrated assessment of designer flow implementation at the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. Using this prominent and representative example, we inform an ideal course of conservation action in regulated river systems based on the presence or absence of several critical features.
Keywords: designer flows, hydropower, integrated assessment, adaptive management, value of information
In Review. [Working Paper] [Code available by request]
Fieldwork prioritization for cost-effective adaptive ecosystem management
With Lucas Bair
A curse of dimensionality in the representation of biological systems for dynamic optimization problems forces researchers to eschew realistic biological dynamics in favor of something more stylized and computationally-feasible. This leaves questions regarding the value of system monitoring and uncertainty reduction unanswered. Recent advances in dynamic programming algorithms permit more faithful biological dynamics with both latent and observed states. This paper values and directs targeted learning efforts concerning observational, parametric, and forecasting uncertainties in the Colorado River ecosystem.
Keywords: adaptive management, targeted learning, uncertainty, attention, forward dynamic programming
[Manuscript and code available by request]
Budgeting future global warming potential
For 40 years, economics has consistently diluted the severity of the projected damages due to climate change, despite near-universal objection from the scientific community. In this paper, I identify an optimal emissions pathway (and carbon price) driven by the scientific emphasis on avoiding unknown tipping points, without requiring any the heavily-criticized assumptions that burden cost-benefit IAMs. My results do not perpetuate the claim that climate change is something we can afford to address at a snail’s pace.
Keywords: the role of economics in climate change, optimal abatement, risk and irreversibility, tipping points, integrated assessment modeling
[Manuscript and code available by request]
A river in need of irrigating: Adaptive management for the optimal return of water to the Rio Grande
With Charles Yackulic
Due to irrigation demands, the Rio Grande regularly runs dry in Summer months. The lack of a continuous wetted surface threatens several endemic species like the silvery minnow, a small endangered species that sustains larger fish. Populations of this short-lived species can fluctuate three orders of magnitude as river conditions change from year to year, leading to significant uncertainty in its ongoing survival. However, water acquired from agricultural lessors is now available to mitigate drying during the irrigation season to protect silvery minnow refugia. In this paper, we generate an adaptive management program to strategically allocate this water along the Rio Grande and over the irrigation season to maximize expected recruitment of the silvery minnow in the following Fall.
Keywords: adaptive management, retired water rights, hydrograph enhancement, endangered species recruitment, population viability, forward dynamic programming
Cost-effective species viability
The modeling choices that go into designing an optimization problem are just as important as the optimization step itself. For example, models concerned with “cost-effective species viability” could take on all sorts of forms, thus the resulting “optimal” policies will naturally vary in expected present cost or long-run viability. Using two representative case studies, I show that without key model components, an “optimal” solution to the viability problem can end up being excessively costly or excessively risky.
Keywords: model design, bioeconomics, endangered species conservation
Encouraging the defragmentation of habitat across privately-owned lands
Land ownership is often fragmented in areas of conservation interest. Fragmented ownership of a public ecological good will naturally inhibit the preservation of a large, contiguous piece of land—the ecological ideal—without an incentive scheme that encourages collective action. I use methods from statistical mechanics to develop a model of landscape value and collective landowner behavior, then use this to inform efficient land-use regulation that rewards smallholders for preserving (1) the social benefits of conserving any one parcel, and (2) the positive network effects that the connection of conserved parcels creates.
Keywords: land use, habitat fragmentation, conservation incentives, policy design