This paper examines the local impacts of shale gas development (SGD). We use a hedonic framework and exploit a discrete change in expectations about SGD caused by the New York State moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. Our research design combines difference-indifferences and border discontinuity, as well as underlying shale geology, on properties in Pennsylvania and New York. Results suggest that New York properties that were most likely to experience both the financial benefits and environmental consequences of SGD dropped in value 23% as a result of the moratorium, which under certain assumptions indicates a large and positive net valuation of SGD.

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We focus on identification and estimation of potentially negative environmental impacts of unconventional natural gas extraction on property values in the United States and advance previous research by contributing new data and new identification strategies for isolating these potential impacts. Our study area consists of two counties in Pennsylvania that are home to large amounts of unconventional natural gas extraction but are otherwise isolated from other resource extraction industries or large urban areas. We deploy parametric, semiparametric, and matching hedonic regression models that include recent quasi-experimental methods and, in contrast to previous research and much popular intuition, we fail to find robust significance that negative environmental externalities of natural gas extraction are manifested in nearby property values. While there may be plausible risks associated with unconventional natural gas extraction, we do not find consistent evidence to suggest that these risks significantly affect nearby property values.

We investigate the relative performance of simple groundwater policies in a spatially detailed aquifer and reveal the distribution of net benefits from those policies. Groundwater policy is plagued with a high level of complexity in achieving the first best outcome, which may be costly and politically infeasible to adopt. We parameterize a 8,457 cell spatially detailed model of the Northwest Kansas section of the Ogallala Aquifer and find that simple pricing, quantity, and water market policies perform poorly but can be improved upon by localized policies that are more efficient and garner more popular support.

In this paper, we show that Case-based decision theory, proposed by Gilboa and Schmeidler (Q J Econ 110 (3): 1995), can explain the aggregate dynamics of cooperation in the repeated Prisoner's Dilemma, as observed in the experiments performed by Camera and Casari (Am Econ Rev 99:979-1005, 2009). Moreover, we find CBDT provides a better fit to the dynamics of cooperation than does the existing Probit model, which is the first time such a result has been found. We also find that humans aspire to a payoff above the mutual defection outcome but below the mutual cooperation outcome, which suggests they hope, but are not confident, that cooperation can be achieved. Finally, our best-fitting parameters suggest that circumstances with more details are easier to recall. We make a prediction for future experiments: if the repeated PD were run for more periods, then we would be begin to see an increase in cooperation, most dramatically in the second treatment, where history is observed but identities are not. This is the first application of Case-based decision theory to a strategic context and the first empirical test of CBDT in such a context. It is also the first application of bootstrapped standard errors to an agent-based model.