Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


Dissertation.pdf (25.27 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Three Essays on Urban and Environmental Economics

Wang, Yixuan
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744201478297322

Abstract Details

2025, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics.
With more than 55% of the global population now living in cities and 68% projected by 2050, urbanization generates tremendous societal benefits. However, cities are embedded within the natural environment; they affect and are affected by natural systems, including increasing impacts of pollution, natural disasters, and climate change. Urbanization is also a long-term process involving urban development and redevelopment, environmental degradation and restoration, and other neighborhood changes that are spurred by spatial spillovers among people and firms and shaped by public policies. This dissertation studies these spatial interactions and their implications for social welfare and policy. The first chapter examines the gentrification effect of the Atlanta BeltLine, an urban redevelopment project that transforms the former railway corridor into a multi-use trail with urban and environmental amenities. I build a quantitative spatial equilibrium model with heterogeneous labor to characterize income sorting in response to amenity increases due to the BeltLine, calibrated to match observed housing price rises. I find that this amenity rise disproportionately attracts high-skilled over low-skilled residents and alters the welfare distribution both across regions and income groups, leading to significant neighborhood change and gentrification. Increasing land supply by relaxing zoning regulations can mitigate the gentrification induced by the BeltLine. In the second chapter, I investigate the extent to which roads and highways expand the spatial scale of urban areas in China. To overcome the potential endogeneity problem, I employ the 1962 highway network as the instrumental variable and take advantage of several measurements of urbanized areas. The two-stage least-squares results show that the lengths of roads and highways within a city have a positive effect on the spatial scale of urban areas. The IV quantile regression confirms that for cities with a larger scale of urbanized areas, the expansion effect of roads is smaller. Using comprehensive nationwide city-level land use data and industrial and commercial firms' registration data, I find that the main driver of the observed positive effect is the expansion of industrial land. The results are robust to various specifications. The third chapter evaluates the comprehensive effects of the "coal-to-gas" policy in China following its complete implementation in 2017, using the synthetic difference-in-differences method. I propose four channels through which the policy could affect the air quality in untreated cities. The findings reveal a significant decrease in air pollution levels, as measured by PM 10, in both the treated and untreated areas. However, the net spillover effect in the treated and untreated areas exhibits heterogeneous spatial distribution patterns due to different mechanisms. These differences could be related to the political economy and natural geography of China. The fourth chapter concludes this dissertation.
Elena Irwin (Advisor)
Yao Wang (Advisor)
Allen Klaiber (Committee Member)
Leah Bevis (Committee Member)
Economics; Environmental Economics; Regional Studies
gentrification; infrastructure; urban redevelopment; amenities; environment policy; housing supply

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wang, Y. (2025). Three Essays on Urban and Environmental Economics [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744201478297322

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wang, Yixuan. Three Essays on Urban and Environmental Economics. 2025. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744201478297322.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wang, Yixuan. "Three Essays on Urban and Environmental Economics." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2025. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744201478297322

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1744201478297322
54
© 2025, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12