In developing countries, urban clusters of manufacturers which are "informal"—small-scale, unlicensed and virtually unregulated—can have severe environmental impacts. Yet pollution control efforts have traditionally focused on large industrial sources, in part because the problem is not...

Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, is home to the U.S.–Mexico border’s largest maquiladora labor force, and also its worst air pollution. We marshal two types of evidence to examine the link between maquiladoras and air pollution in Ciudad Juárez, and in its sister city, El Paso, Texas. First, we...

Shade-grown coffee provides a livelihood to many farmers, protects biodiversity, and creates environmental services. Many shade-coffee farmers have abandoned production in recent years, however, in response to declines in international coffee prices. This paper builds a farmer decision model...

Widespread testing is key to controlling the spread of COVID-19. But should we worry about self-selection bias in the testing? The recent literature on willful ignorance says we should – people often avoid health information. In the context of COVID-19, such willful ignorance can bias testing...

We examine the net benefits of social distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the United States. Social distancing saves lives but imposes large costs on society due to reduced economic activity. We use epidemiological and economic forecasting to perform a rapid benefit-cost analysis of...

Physical distancing measures are important tools to control disease spread, especially in the absence of treatments and vaccines. While distancing measures can safeguard public health, they also can profoundly impact the economy and may have important indirect effects on the environment. The...