Environmental Regulations and International Trade: A Quantitative Economic Analysis of World Pollution Emissions.
With Yuwan Duan, Ting Ji, Yi Lu. Journal of Public Economics, 2021.
Link to PaperThis paper uses smartphone GPS data to study the impact of highways on intracity non-work travel within the Seattle MSA. Using a discrete choice framework, I show that destinations that are accessed by traveling on or across a highway are visited 17% less than other destinations, ceteris paribus. This effect is non-linear in travel distance and is especially significant for short trips by travelers in urbanized zones. I then quantify the welfare effects of two counterfactual scenarios with alternative highway systems using a quantitative urban model that incorporates non-work travel. I find that welfare increases by 10.2% if the urban highways are replaced with an underground system and by 9.0% if they are replaced with primary surface roads. For both exercises, residents in the urban core benefit from amenity improvements, albeit at the cost of reduced amenities in suburban zones.
