Research
Working Papers
Effects of Large Sporting Events on Bike-Sharing Use: Evidence from London
[Link to Full Paper]
Bike-sharing systems affect mode choice for within-city transportation. Using bike rental data from Transport for London, this paper exploits the plausibly-exogenous timing of Premier League games to identify how proximity to stadiums affects demand for London's bike-sharing system. Results indicate games at Stamford Bridge (stadium) cause a 24.36% increase in the number of bike trips arriving within 0.5km of the stadium, with effects diminishing as distance increases. In contrast, games at London Stadium decrease nearby bike-sharing use and may actually crowd out would-be bike-share users closest to the stadium. Proximity to stadiums also changes cyclist behavior in other ways: Depending on the stadium, cyclists arriving within 0.5km of a stadium on a game day travel 7.42-14.36% farther than the average day in the sample.
Works in Progress
Unintended Consequences of Public Transit Strikes on Health and Travel Behavior
I exploit the timing of public transit strikes in London to demonstrate that strikes have public health costs in the context of cyclist safety. Using a novel dataset that records the geo-location of all known cyclist-involved crashes in London between 2005-2018, I show the first day of a public transit strike causes a 18.67% increase in the number of cyclist-involved crashes in boroughs where the city has implemented bike- sharing stations. This increase in crashes primarily operates through the mechanism of increased cycling demand on strike days, as public transit strikes in London cause temporary substitution to the city’s bike-sharing system when transit by metro rail is unavailable. In future work, I plan to show how strikes affect the severity of crashes and how crashes evolve over time following a transit strike.
Air Pollution in the Land of Blue Sky: Effects of Ulaanbaatar's Raw Coal Ban on Air Quality and Child Health
On May 15, 2019 the Government of Mongolia implemented a ban on burning raw coal in the country’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar. This paper investigates the impact of Ulaanbaatar’s 2019 raw coal ban on air pollution and infant health using city- and province-level data from the National Statistics Office of Mongolia. Results from an event study framework indicate the ban reduced particulate air pollution (PM10) by 19%, but increased Sulfur Dioxide air pollution (SO2) by 58%. Effects of the ban on SO2 air pollution are robust to various clustering techniques and are more pronounced during winter months. While a policy goal was to improve health outcomes for infants and children under five, there is little evidence the ban altered mortality rates among these groups. Correlational evidence suggests the increase in ambient SO2 pollution may have offset potential mortality reductions from the decrease in ambient PM10 pollution.
Letter Grading Government Corruption (co-authored with Dr. Bryan McCannon and Zach Porreca)
We replicate and extend a seminal field study to differentiate inefficiency of publicly-provided services from government corruption. Envelopes were sent to fictitious businesses at nonexistent addresses across 159 countries. Whether the letter was returned is the outcome variable of interest. By randomly treating one-half of the envelopes by including money in them, we induce public sector theft. We first establish a causal average treatment effect. Envelopes with money are 4.5 percentage points less likely to be returned. We then consider four important dimensions argued to be related to government service efficiency. we show that public sector management quality and public sector employee's beliefs about willingness to serve citizens and follow the rules correlate with our measurement of corruption, but technology, other attitudes, and compensation do not.