Applied Studies Organized by Topic & Method

Studies collected for EDS241/ESM244 (2025-2026):

The studies below were used throughout the course in several ways:

  1. As class examples to help us understand research design, causal inference, and applied methods
  2. As references to additional reading, for students who wanted to read more about a topic or method
  3. As studies for student-led final projects, matched to student interests and used to replicate analyses with open-source data (when available) in group-led projects
LEGEND:

⭐️ Research study includes author(s) @BREN  

📍 Research study includes author(s) @UCSB  

🔁 Selected findings of study analyses replicated using open access data  

Study’s Organized by Topic

EDS241/ESM244 Student Interests (Winter, 2025; Winter, 2026)

Study Title
GREEN SPACES - Branas et al., 2011 💚 A Difference-in-Differences Analysis of Health, Safety, and Greening Vacant Urban Space
CARBON - Jayachandran et al., 2017 🍃 Cash for Carbon - A Randomized Trial of Payments for Ecosystem Services to Reduce Deforestation
⭐️ 🔁 CARBON -Lepissier & Mildenberger, 2021 🍃 Unilateral Climate Policies Can Substantially Reduce National Carbon Pollution
BIRDS - Xie & Zhu, 2025 🕊️ Exploring the ecological impacts of high-speed rail on urban avian biodiversity
FISH - Hsueh et al., 2015 🐟 Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the “Rights to Fish”: The Effects of Catch Shares on Fishermen’s Days at Sea
MPA - Ahmadiam et al., 2015 🐡 Integrating Impact Evaluation in the Design and Implementation of Monitoring Marine Protected Areas
🔁 AQUACULTURE - Rennie et al., 2019 🎣 Impacts of freshwater aquaculture on fish communities: A whole‐ecosystem experimental approach
🔁 BYCATCH - Senko et al., 2025 🐳 Harnessing Solar Energy to Reduce Sea Turtle Bycatch
ENERGY - Ferguson & Nolgren, 2024 ⚡ The Causal Effects of Climate Investment Subsidies: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Swedish Firms
ENERGY - Aklin et al., 2017 ⚡ Does Basic Energy Access Generate Socioeconomic Benefits? A Field Experiment with Off-grid Solar Power in India
📍 FIRE - Hazlett & Mildenberger 2020 🔥 Wildfire Exposure Increases Pro-Environment Voting within Democratic but Not Republican Areas
🔁 FIRE - Letellier et al., 2018 🔥 Applying a two-stage generalized synthetic control approach to quantify the heterogeneous health effects of extreme weather events
⭐️ 🔁 LAND - Buntaine et al., 2014 🌴 Titling community land to prevent deforestation: An evaluation of a best-case program in Morona-Santiago, Ecuador
LAND - Blackman et al., 2017 🌴 Titling Indigenous Communities Protects Forests in the Peruvian Amazon
🔁 PLASTIC - Papp et al., 2025 🗑️ Plastic bag bans and fees reduce harmful bag litter on shorelines
📍 🔁 MAPS - Mildenberger, 2023 🗺️ Unintended consequences of using maps to communicate sea-level rise
TRANSPORTATION - Bento et al., 2014 🚌 The Effects of Regulation in the Presence of Multiple Unpriced Externalities: Evidence from the Transportation Sector
AIR - Greenstone et al., 2022 🌬️ Can Technology Solve the Principal-Agent Problem? Evidence from China’s War on Air Pollution
WATER - Bhalotra et al., 2021 💧 Urban Water Disinfection and Mortality Decline in Lower-Income Countries
🔁 IRRIGATION - Gatti et al., 2020 💦 Can Irrigation Infrastructure Mitigate the Effect of Rainfall Shocks on Conflict
WETLANDS - Taylor et al., 2021 🦆 Wetlands, Flooding, and the Clean Water Act
🔁 DAMS - Atristain et al., 2024 🪳 Slow Drawdown Fast Recovery: Stream Macroinvertebrate Communities Improve Quickly After Large Dam Decommissioning
CASH - Alix-Garcia et al., 2018 💵 Payments for Environmental Services Supported Social Capital While Increasing Land Management
⭐ 🔁️ LYMES - MacDonald et al., 2018 Missing the People for the Trees: Identifying Coupled Natural Human System Feedbacks Driving the Ecology of Lyme Disease
FORESTS - Andam et al., 2008 🌴 Measuring the effectiveness of protected area networks in reducing deforestation
⭐️ 🔁 TREES - Dudney et al., 2021 🌲 Nonlinear shifts in infectious rust disease due to climate change
⭐️ AGRICULTURE - Larsen & Noack, 2021 🚜 Impact of Local and Landscape Complexity on the Stability of Field-level Pest Control

Studies Organized by Method

Experiments

Study Title
⭐️ 🔁 Buntaine et al., 2024 Social competition drives collective action to reduce informal waste burning in Uganda
⭐️ Anderson & Buntaine et al., 2019 Non‐Governmental Monitoring of Local Governments Increases Compliance with Central Mandates: A National-Scale Field Experiment in China
⭐️ Buntaine et al., 2024 Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China
Gertler, 2004 Do Conditional Cash Transfers Improve Child Health? Evidence from PROGRESA’s Control Randomized Experiment
Jayachandran, 2017 Cash for Carbon- A Randomized Trial of Payments for Ecosystem Services to Reduce Deforestation
🔁 Rennie et al., 2019 Impacts of freshwater aquaculture on fish communities: A whole‐ecosystem experimental approach
Aklin, 2017 Does Basic Energy Access Generate Socioeconomic Benefits? A Field Experiment with Off-grid Solar Power in India
🔁 Senko et al., 2025 Harnessing Solar Energy to Reduce Sea Turtle Bycatch
📍 🔁 Mildenberger, 2023 Unintended consequences of using maps to communicate sea-level rise

Difference-in-Difference (DiD)

Study Title
🔁 Moland et al., 2013 Lobster and cod benefit from small-scale northern marine protected areas: inference from an empirical before–after control-impact study
Mcdermott et al., 2018 The blue paradox: Preemptive overfishing in marine reserves
Branas et al., 2011 A Difference-in-Differences Analysis of Health, Safety, and Greening Vacant Urban Space
Xie & Zhu, 2025 Exploring the ecological impacts of high-speed rail on urban avian biodiversity
Hsueh, 2015 Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the “Rights to Fish”: The Effects of Catch Shares on Fishermen’s Days at Sea
⭐ 🔁️ Buntaine, 2014 Titling community land to prevent deforestation: An evaluation of a best-case program in Morona-Santiago, Ecuador
Bhalotra et al., 2021 Urban Water Disinfection and Mortality Decline in Lower-Income Countries
Taylor et al., 2021 Wetlands, Flooding, and the Clean Water Act
🔁 Atristain et al., 2024 Slow Drawdown Fast Recovery: Stream Macroinvertebrate Communities Improve Quickly After Large Dam Decommissioning

Fixed Effects (The Within-Estimator)

Study Title
📍 Hazlett & Mildenberger, 2020 Wildfire Exposure Increases Pro-Environment Voting within Democratic but Not Republican Areas
📍 Deschenes & Greenstone, 2007 The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Output and Random Fluctuations in Weather
⭐️ 🔁 Dudney et al., 2021 Nonlinear shifts in infectious rust disease due to climate change
Ogasawara, 2021 Persistence of natural disasters on children’s health: Evidence from the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923
Scherb & Voigt, 2011 The human sex odds at birth after the atmospheric atomic bomb tests, after Chernobyl, and in the vicinity of nuclear facilities
⭐️ Larsen & Noack, 2021 Impact of local and landscape complexity on the stability of field-level pest control
Blackman et al., 2017 Titling Indigenous Communities Protects Forests in the Peruvian Amazon
🔁 Papp 2025 Plastic bag bans and fees reduce harmful bag litter on shorelines
🔁 Gatti et al., 2020 Can Irrigation Infrastructure Mitigate the Effect of Rainfall Shocks on Conflict

Instrumental Variables (IV)

Study Title
⭐️ 🔁 Stokes, 2015 Electoral Backlash against Climate Policy: A Natural Experiment on Retrospective Voting and Local Resistance to Public Policy
Greenstone et al., 2022 Can Technology Solve the Principal-Agent Problem? Evidence from China’s War on Air Pollution
Maccini & Yang, 2009 Under the Weather: Health Schooling and Economic Consequences of Early Life Rainfall
Angrist, 1990 Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery-Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records
Robinson et al., 2010 The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation
Zivin et al., 2020 When Externalities Collide: Influenza and Pollution
⭐️ 🔁 MacDonald et al., 2018 Missing the People for the Trees: Identifying Coupled Natural Human System Feedbacks Driving the Ecology of Lyme Disease

Regression Discontinuity Design (RD)

Study Title
Neal, 2024 Estimating the Effectiveness of Forest Protection Using Regression Discontinuity
📍 🔁 Lehmann & Masterson, 2020 Does Aid Reduce Anti-Refugee Violence? Evidence from Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
MacPherson & Sterck 2021 Empowering Refugees Through Cash and Agriculture: A Regression Discontinuity Design
Ferguson & Nolgren 2024 The Causal Effects of Climate Investment Subsidies: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Swedish Firms
Greenstone, 2022 Can Technology Solve the Principal-Agent Problem? Evidence from China’s War on Air Pollution
Bento et al., 2014 The Effects of Regulation in the Presence of Multiple Unpriced Externalities: Evidence from the Transportation Sector
Alix-Garcia et al., 2018 Payments for Environmental Services Supported Social Capital While Increasing Land Management

Synthetic Control Method (SCM)

Study Title
⭐️ 🔁 Lepissier & Mildenberger, 2021 Unilateral Climate Policies Can Substantially Reduce National Carbon Pollution
Lessman & Kramer 2021 The Effect of Cap-and-Trade on Sectoral Emissions: Evidence from California
Abadie et al., 2010 Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program
Abadie, 2021 Using Synthetic Controls: Feasibility, Data Requirements, and Methodological Aspects
Sills et al., 2015 Estimating the Impacts of Local Policy Innovation: The Synthetic Control Method Applied to Tropical Deforestation
Roopsind et al., 2019 Evidence that a national REDD+ program reduces tree cover loss and carbon emissions in a high forest cover, low deforestation country
🔁 Letellier et al., 2018 Applying a two-stage generalized synthetic control approach to quantify the heterogeneous health effects of extreme weather events

Statistical Matching

Study Title
Ahmadia et al., 2015 Integrating impact evaluation in the design and implementation of monitoring marine protected areas
Letellier et al., 2018 Applying a two-stage generalized synthetic control approach to quantify the heterogeneous health effects of extreme weather events
Andam et al., 2008 Measuring the effectiveness of protected area networks in reducing deforestation

Mixed Effects or Random & Fixed Effects Models

Study Title
Gillies et al., 2006 Application of random effects to the study of resource selection by animals
Golub & Sobin, 2020 Statistical Modeling with Litter as a Random Effect in Mixed Models to Manage “Intralitter Likeness”
Thorson & Minto, 2015 A unifying framework for statistical modelling in fisheries biology
Bolker et al., 2009 Generalized linear mixed models: A practical guide for ecology and evolution
Harrison et al., 2018 A brief introduction to mixed effects modelling and multi-model inference in ecology
McNeish & Kelley, 2018 Fixed Effects Models Versus Mixed Effects Models for Clustered Data: Reviewing the Approaches, Disentangling the Differences, and Making Recommendations

General - Causal Inference

Study Title
⭐️ Larson, Meng, Kendall, 2019 Causal analysis in control–impact ecological studies with observational data
Sciberras et al., 2017 Evaluating the biological effectiveness of fully and partially protected marine areas
⭐️ Lenihan et al 2021 Evidence that spillover from Marine Protected Areas benefits the spiny lobster (Panulirus interruptus) fishery in southern California
Rubin, 2005 Causal Inference Using Potential Outcomes
Pearl, 1999 Statistics, Causality, and Graphs
Pischke & Angrist 2010 The Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics: How Better Research Design is Taking the Con out of Econometrics

Data Science References - General

Reproducibility