2022 Theses Doctoral

Essays on land use and agriculture

Taylor, Charles

This dissertation explores policy-relevant questions related to climate change, agriculture, land use, and water from an environmental economics perspective. The first chapter investigates the impact of pesticides on human health and welfare using using cicada emergence as a ecologically-driven natural experiment. The second analyzes the relationship between irrigation and climate change, showing how adaptive measures can create negative externalities. The third chapter provides an estimate of the value of wetlands for flood mitigation, an important topic in relation to the Clean Water Act. Overall, these chapters explore both how humans affect the land and the reverse feedback of how land use decisions affect human welfare.