UC Berkeley

Effective, fair, and efficient policy designed to manage ecosystems requires that we quantify the benefits these systems provide to society – so that they can be weighed against the costs of environmental regulation. A large ecological literature documents how ecosystem loss and degradation affect environmental outcomes, but these changes are difficult to price because many of the societal benefits ecosystems provide lack a formal market and are therefore absent from society’s balance sheet. This dissertation aims to fill this knowledge gap by systematically evaluating the effects of changes in ecosystem conditions on human well-being. I focus on natural endowments that have plausibly large social values but face significant challenges to their persistence and health. The first two essays provide new estimates of how large-scale disturbances to forests and wetlands affect market and non-market outcomes. By quantifying the value of benefits that these ecosystems provide, my findings can assist decision makers in trading off the costs and benefits of environmental protection. To facilitate future research into the economic and social value of other natural resources, the final chapter of my dissertation develops a new research design to estimate causal effects in cross-sectional settings. I then demonstrate the efficacy and utility of this approach by providing new estimates for the effect of average climate and soil conditions on agricultural yields – relationships notoriously confounded by unobserved farmer and location characteristics but crucial for guiding economic and policy decisions.