Research
The Effects of Conservation Easements on Housing Prices and Development [Job Market Paper] (download)
Conservation easements are a commonly used tool to permanently conserve land with environmental and social importance. While they have the ability to provide local amenity value to nearby properties, conservation easements exist in perpetuity which ensures they will never be developed, potentially exacerbating housing shortages. I examine the effect of conservation easements on nearby properties using a nationwide dataset of over 34 million repeat sales of residential properties across 30 years. I find that conservation easements increase nearby property values on average between 0.35 and 1.32 percent. Homeowners particularly value easements for recreation purposes and those held by government agencies. These results are mainly driven by sales in metropolitan counties. I also find that at the county level, conservation easements have a small but significant effect in reducing new development, which is more pronounced in counties that are more developed. These results illustrate the value provided by permanent land conservation but also the role that land use restrictions play in local development.
Trading Green? Do Tax Credit Markets Improve Permanent Land Conservation?
with Dominic Parker and Annalise Helm
This paper examines the United States’ primary Payments for Environmental Services (PES) mechanism—permanent conservation easements, covering over 38 million acres—and the effects of markets for transferable tax credits. We theorize how transferability will expand participation among lower-income landowners while also improving conservation outcomes. Using a calculator of federal and state tax codes from 1990–2025 and policy changes in 12 states (five of which later added transferability), we find that before transferability, high-income donors faced a lower effective cost of conservation than low-income donors. Transferability reduced this gap and equalized donation responses across income groups. Transferability also increased the likelihood that conserved lands remain occupied by local residents and raised measures of soil quality and conservation value. These results demonstrate how market trade in tax credits can make conservation incentives both more equitable and more effective, aligning private participation with broader public conservation goals.
The Effect of Bike Sharing Systems on Traffic Accidents, Injuries, and Fatalities (download)
Bike sharing systems (BSS) have become prominent in the majority of large U.S. cities as another transportation option. I quantify the effects of an increase in the usership of these systems on traffic accidents, injuries, and fatalities and discuss the mechanisms through which these effects occur. For my empirical analysis, I utilize daily data from 8 different U.S. cities between 2014 and 2022 of BSS ridership and traffic accidents. The primary identification strategy uses a negative binomial model with average wind speed as an instrument for BSS ridership. I find that a 1 standard deviation increase in BSS ridership increases accidents by 11 percent, injuries by 24.3 percent, and fatalities by 96 percent. Additional model specifications suggest factors like bike infrastructure play the biggest role in overall safety.
