Kaiyi Wen (温开一)
Working Papers & Work in Progress
(Job Market Paper)
Beyond the Haze of Air Pollution: Traffic Noise and Mental Health
(with Neha Khanna, presented at AERE 2023 Summer Conference, 2023 HINTS Data Users Conference, *PSU AGSE Seminar, *MEA 2024 Annual Conference, CES 2024 North America Conference. * indicates presented by the coauthor)
Poor mental health triggers serious labor market penalties and is a growing cause for concern among health professionals and economists. While the literature has linked several factors to poor mental health, the role of non-chemical environmental factors is unclear. Using restricted data on 14,000 survey respondents, we estimate that road noise is associated with sleep deprivation and has a statistically significant, causal effect on mental health, equivalent to a 10% increase in the number of respondents experiencing mild symptoms. This translates to an annual welfare loss as large as $13 billion for the US.
(Working Paper)
As Time Goes By: Redlining and Environmental Justice
(with Neha Khanna, will be presented at AERE 2024 Summer Conference, 2024 NAREA Annual Meeting and Workshop, SEA 94th Annual Meeting)
We contribute to the literature on environmental justice by exploring the role of two relatively unexplored factors, redlining and kinship, in explaining the environmental pollution gap between marginalized and non-marginalized communities. Using restricted data on 23,000 survey respondents in the contiguous US, we measure onsite emissions, ambient road noise, and PM2.5 concentrations at the individual and community levels. We find that individuals identifying as Black are exposed to higher levels of all three pollutants as compared to White individuals. However, the results are sensitive to geographic scale and it matters whether we measure pollution at the local (i.e. individual) or neighborhood scale. Overall, our results suggest that while neighborhoods with higher shares of African Americans have no greater ambient pollution than relatively white neighborhoods, within these neighborhoods, individuals of color may still be disproportionately exposed to pollutants as compared to white individuals.
(Working Paper)
Too Shiny to Handle: Nighttime Light and Mental Health
(with Yushang Wei, will be presented at *SEA 94th Annual Meeting. * indicates presented by the coauthor)
Poor mental health imposes significant labor market penalties and is a growing concern among health professionals and economists. While several factors are linked to poor mental health, the role of non-chemical environmental factors remains unclear. Meanwhile, the average night sky has become brighter by 9.6% per year since 2011. This excessive light usage results in substantial welfare losses and health problems. We conduct the first study to establish a causal relationship between light pollution and mental health in the US. Using restricted data on approximately 14,000 survey respondents and granular nighttime light data from NASA, we exploit variations in local cloud cover to establish the exogenous change in nighttime light pollution. Our findings demonstrate that 2.7% of respondents who previously reported minimal mental health concerns are now showing mild symptoms of mental health issues. This translates to an annual welfare loss of up to $47 billion attributed to lost earnings in the labor market.
(Work in Progress)