Anderson Ospino presented a paper analyzing the effectiveness of public health insurance (Medicaid) in mitigating the harmful effects of prenatal air pollution exposure on fetal death and birth outcomes. Air pollution has an extensive range of deleterious impacts on health and has been linked to poor outcomes in pregnancy, including premature birth, low birth weights, and even fetal death.
Xiurou Wu presented her work modeling how fishers choose to allocate fishing effort across space. Understanding how these decisions are made is useful for fisheries management because it can help policymakers assess the potential heterogenous biological and economic impacts of spatial management strategies like marine protected areas.
This week Jesse Gourevitch presented his work estimating the unpriced flood risk in the US housing market. He and his collaborators combined climate models that predict changes in flood risk with housing market data to identify the extent to which information about flooding is incorporated into market prices. Using these data they estimate that residential properties in the United States exposed to flood risk are overvalued by $121-237 billion dollars.
Kelly Wu presented her work estimating the causal impact of the Primary Forest and Peat Moratorium in Indonesia on health outcomes. The moratorium limits the number of permit issues to clear forests, and peat lands, which Kelly hypothesizes will improve health outcomes by reducing land-clearing fires and harmful exposure to smoke.
