Jason Zhu

Jason Zhu

Agricultural & Resource Economicsjhzzhu@ucdavis.edu

Research in Progress

Resource Curse? Fracking Boom and High School Students’ Educational Attainment

Abstract. The advancement of oil and gas extraction technologies accelerated hydraulic fracking in many resource-rich states in the early 2000s. This paper investigates the effect of the hydraulic fracking boom in the late 2000s on high school students’ dropout rates using school-by-grade-level data in Colorado. Using a difference-in-differences research design, I find a 0.65 percentage points decrease in the overall dropout rate in the districts with a fracking boom relative to non-boom school districts. This translates to a potential increase in lifetime earnings and total tax revenues of $280 million. I also investigate heterogeneous effects, finding that the impact was larger for underrepresented students. I explore two main channels, the increase in local income and the increase in teacher quality, to explain these findings. Other explanations, such as residential sorting and migration, receive little empirical support.

Photo credit
Natural gas wells and storage tanks in front of houses in Erie, Colorado.

Corn Expansion: Atrazine Exposure, and Infant Health in the U.S.

Abstract. Atrazine is one of the most used herbicides in the United States, especially on field corn. Although the European Union banned atrazine application in 2003, the United States still allows for application. Despite its known detrimental effects on the environment and health in the laboratory setting, the causal effects of atrazine on fetal health is understudied in the current economics literature. Leveraging the renewable fuel standard as an instrument to corn and ethanol expansion, this paper estimates the causal effect of atrazine exposure on fetal health. To complement the difference-in-differences set up, this paper construct a share-share instrument using the pre-policy wheat and cotton acreage share, based on the assumption that farms have enough land and will convert to corn due to the increase in ethanol prices. Results suggests that on average, counties with atrazine exposure have a significant lighter infants; and the instrumental variable research design suggests that for each kilogram per kilometer increase in atrazine lowers the birthweight by 2.332 grams. Together, these estimates suggest that atrazine exposure generates negative health externalities, likely mediated by groundwater contamination.

A farm sprayer applying a field treatment.