PhD thesis defence by Benjamin Hattemer
This thesis consists of three essays in environmental and labor economics.
The first chapter studies the physical risks of environmental factors on labor market outcomes. The second and third chapters evaluate policy interventions in the labor and greenhouse gas emission markets, respectively.
In the first chapter, co-authored with Ismael Moreno-Martinez, we provide causal estimates of the effect of air pollution through dust precipitation on workplace safety using data on the universe of work accidents in Spain between 2010 and 2019. The results indicate that a day of dust precipitation increases work accidents by 1.4 percent, which is of the same order of magnitude as that of high temperatures. Impacts are widespread, spanning most worker and accident characteristics.
In the second chapter, co-authored with Adriano De Falco and Sofía Sierra Vásquez, we study the impact of a recruitment policy in Chile designed to improve the quality of new teachers by incentivising high-achieving and restricting low-achieving high school graduates from entering the teaching profession. We document that the reform effectively improved the average test scores of new teachers and increased teachers’ effectiveness, through unintended effects of the reform.
In my final chapter, co-authored with Marie Alder and Eva Franzmeyer, we provide causal firm-level estimates of the effect of a reduction in free emission allowances in emission trading systems on emissions and economic performance. Using a difference-in-differences estimation, we show that reducing free allowances decreased emissions by more than 11 percent overall. This reduction was accompanied by a significant decrease in economic performance, which can be rationalised through an extensive margin adjustment of firms.
Register