Does Green Infrastructure Work? Precipitation, Protected Areas, Floods and Landslides

Submitted by Marianela Arguello on

We use monthly municipality data for the period 2000-2015 in Guatemala and monthly district data for the period 1992-2019 in Costa Rica. We define relevant catchment areas using water flows to the population centers of the administrative units. Then, we calculate the precipitation inside and outside Pas within the relevant catchment areas, and test how the frequency of floods and landslides is affected by whether rain falls inside or outside PAs. We use a two-way fixed-effects panel data model. For Guatemala, we find no robust statistically significant effects on these types of disasters.

Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Forestry, Land

Do social comparisons and negative shocks affect the subjective well‐being of the poor? Evidence from the Peruvian Amazon

Submitted by Mark Senanu Ku… on

AbstractThis paper contributes to the literature by testing the effect of a household's relative position on its subjective well‐being. Our results show that both self‐perceived status and relative income have significant effects on the subjective well‐being of households located in the Peruvian Amazon. The paper also considers negative random shocks and shows that non‐agricultural shocks have a negative effect on subjective well‐being.

Air pollution exposure and COVID-19: A look at mortality in Mexico City using individual-level data

Submitted by Mark Senanu Ku… on

We use individual-level data to estimate the effects of long- and short-term exposure to air pollution (PM2.5) on the probability of dying from COVID-19. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to look at this relationship using individual-level data. We find that for Mexico City there is evidence of a positive relationship between pollution and mortality that significantly grows with age and that appears to be mostly driven by long- rather than short-term exposure.

Air Quality, Covid-19

Extreme weather events and pro-environmental behavior: evidence from a climate change vulnerable country

Submitted by Mark Senanu Ku… on

Experiencing an extreme weather event and its consequences might make the risks associated with climate change more tangible, easier to evaluate, and more salient. Consequently, those experiences might translate into the adoption of pro-environmental behaviours. Understanding this relationship is fundamental for the successful design of policies aimed towards promoting the adoption of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.

Climate Change

Stated preferences outperform elicited preferences for predicting reported compliance with COVID-19 prophylactic measures

Submitted by Luat Do on
EfD Authors:

This article studies the behavioral and socio-demographic determinants of reported compliance with prophylactic measures against COVID-19: barrier gestures, lockdown restrictions and mask wearing. The study contrasts two types of measures for behavioral determinants: experimentally elicited preferences (risk tolerance, time preferences, social value orientation and cooperativeness) and stated preferences (risk tolerance, time preferences, and the GSS trust question).

Health, Policy Design

Students’ non-cognitive skills in times of crisis: COVID-19 in Mexico

Submitted by Mark Senanu Ku… on

The COVID-19 pandemic caused serious disruptions in the school systems throughout the world. In this work we look at the effect that the pandemic had in non-cognitive skills of students in Mexico. Few studies have looked at this relationship and the studies available have looked at the effects on children in high-income countries. Our results show that growth mindset declined, while social awareness and self-management improved during the pandemic.

Analysis of opportunities for the introduction of fiscal instruments that incentivize the decarbonization of the waste management sector in Costa Rica

Submitted by Marianela Arguello on

This document seeks to analyze the context of the waste sector in the country, including the management of the wastes, their emissions, the environmental and social externalities, the actors, the relevant regulations, and the advances of the action plan of the sector, among other aspects; second, review the literature regarding the use and the impact of the fiscal instruments in the managing sector in different countries. This provides lessons that can be useful for the adaptation of similar instruments in this sector for decarbonization and green recuperation in Costa Rica.

Climate Change, Covid-19, Land, Policy Design, Waste