Working Papers
Zero fare, cleaner air? The causal effect of Luxembourg’s free public transportation policy on carbon emissions. (submitted)
with Tobias Eibinger (Graz) working paper link
Winner of the Best Paper Award at the 6th Workshop for Young Scientists on Applied Economics, Hannover, 2024
Media coverage: Verdens Bedste Nyheder
Abstract
In March 2020, Luxembourg became the first country in the world to offer free transport across all modes of public transport. We leverage this unique quasi-experimental setting to evaluate whether Luxembourg's free public transport policy led to a reduction in carbon emissions from road transport. We use spatial data from the European Emission Database on Global Atmospheric Research to construct a panel of carbon emissions for NUTS 2 regions in the EU from 2016 to 2021. Given Luxembourg's unique characteristics among these regions, Difference-in-Differences and canonical Synthetic-Control methods are inadequate for finding a suitable counterfactual for Luxembourg. Instead, we employ the recently proposed Synthetic Difference-in-Differences method, which combines the advantages of both of these methods to create a synthetic comparison for Luxembourg. We estimate an average reduction in road transport emissions of 6.1% over the period 2020-2021 attributable to the policy. To ensure a causal interpretation, we consider Luxembourg's distinctive characteristics and account for the concurrent COVID-19 pandemic as well as other challenges to address potential threats to identification. In particular, we control for confounding factors such as changes in commuting and working-from-home patterns as well as low-emission engine technologies and fuel prices. Event study analyses and sensitivity checks support the robustness of our results.Rising waters, falling well-being: The effects of the 2013 East German flood on subjective well-being. (submitted)
with Katharina Kolb (Halle) and Christoph Wunder (Halle)
Abstract
This paper employs a panel event study design to examine the causal effects of the 2013 flood disaster in East Germany on subjective well-being. We merge geo-spatial flood data with longitudinal data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) to identify individuals in affected municipalities. Our results show that those affected by the flood report a significant life satisfaction drop of 0.17 points on an 11-point scale, which is equivalent to a 2.5% fall from pre-flood levels, in the year after the flood. The effect is more severe in peripheral areas than in central areas, and for low-income individuals than for high-income individuals. However, the effect dissipates by 2015. Additionally, we observe a notable initial decrease in health satisfaction, followed by recovery, while financial satisfaction was largely unaffected.Work in Progress
The Effect of Finland’s Carbon Tax on Road Transportation Emissions
with Christoph Wunder (Halle)
Finite Pool of Worries and Climate Change
Hybernating Papers
The Environmental Effectiveness of a Carbon Tax: A Comparative Case study of the Nordic Experience
Earlier version - World Bank working paper series, Nov 2019 Download paper here