The emissions reductions from the adoption of a new transportation technology depend on the emissions from the new technology relative to those from the displaced technology. We evaluate the emissions reductions from electric vehicles (EVs) by identifying which vehicles would have been purchased...

Local governments spend roughly $1.6 trillion per year to provide a variety of public services ranging from police and fire protection to public schools and public transit. However, we know little about public sector's productivity in delivering key services. To understand the productivity both...

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is the first international cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide and the largest carbon pricing regime in the world. A significant concern over the Emissions Trading Scheme has been the potential impact on the competitiveness of industry. Using data...

The market for plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) exhibits indirect network effects in that there is interdependence between consumer decision of EV purchase and investor decision of charging station deployment. Through a stylized model, we demonstrate that indirect network effects on both sides of...

China is experiencing rapid urbanization. Its capital city, Beijing, experienced a 53 percent increase in population from 2001 to 2013. To address traffic congestion and air pollution, two of the most pressing urban challenges, Beijing has been investing heavily in transportation infrastructure....

Triggered by a territorial dispute, as well as historical animosity, a nationwide civilian boycott of Japanese products took place in China in summer of 2012. Using detailed data on vehicle sales in four major Chinese cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Nanjing), this study investigates the...

Brand naming challenges are more complex in logographic languages (e.g., Chinese), compared with phonographic languages (e.g., English), because the former features looser correspondence between sound and meaning. With these two dimensions of sound and meaning, the authors propose a four-way...

Economists often favor market-based mechanisms (e.g., auction) over non-market based mechanisms (e.g., lottery) for allocating scarce public resources on grounds of economic efficiency and revenue generation. When the usage of the resources in question generates negative externalities that are...

During 2013-2014, China launched a nationwide, real-time air quality monitoring and disclosure program, a watershed moment in the history of its environmental regulations. We present the first empirical analysis of this natural experiment by exploiting its staggered implementation across cities....

The U.S. public transit system represents a multi-billion dollar industry that provides essential transit services to millions of urban residents. We study the market for new transit buses that features a set of non-profit transit agencies purchasing buses primarily from a few domestic bus...