Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Economics
Document Type
Dissertation
Abstract
This dissertation contains three essays related to the field of microeconomics, with special attention to human behavior surrounding the environment, labor market decisions, the housing market, and health in the micro-economy. In the first essay, I examine the impact of industrial air pollution on Louisiana real estate market outcomes--particularly the sale price of homes and the number of homes sold. Changes in weather patterns at industrial facilities impact the transport and dispersion of pollution from those facilities from one year to another. These changes in weather provide an exogenous source of variation in pollution concentrations observed at homes over time, which is exploited through the NOAA's HYSPLIT model. Examining the near universe of home sales in Louisiana from 1998-2018, results show that real estate sales decrease with increases in pollution concentration, and that those decreases in sales are concentrated among lower-valued homes, while higher-valued homes sell more.
In the second essay, my coauthor and I analyze how religious affiliation influences local labor market outcomes, marriage, and fertility choice. Exploiting quasi-random variation in historical immigration from 1850 to 2010 and origin-specific religiosity, we isolate exogenous variation in the religious composition of U.S. commuting zones for 1940-2010. We find that, relative to the religiously unaffiliated share, an exogenous increase in Protestant, Orthodox Christian, and ”Other” religious shares decrease labor force participation share--predominantly among women, while Jewish share increases the number of women who are married and working.
In the third essay, I ask whether alcohol and tobacco are complements or substitutes for U.S. youth. I use the staggered adoption of Tobacco 21 (T21) laws that raised the minimum legal sales age to purchase tobacco from 18 to 21 across U.S. states in a staggered difference-in-differences approach. I find evidence that T21 decreased smoking participation among 18-to-20-year-olds, but increased alcohol consumption, including binge drinking.
Date
3-25-2025
Recommended Citation
Peshoff, Mary, "Essays In Microeconomics" (2025). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 6702.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/6702
Committee Chair
Daniel Keniston
