Studies collected for EDS241/ESM244 (2025-2026):
The studies below were used throughout the course in several ways:
- As class examples to help us understand research design, causal inference, and applied methods
- As references to additional reading, for students who wanted to read more about a topic or method
- 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
- Baker, 2016 - 1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility
- Kelly, 2019 - Rate and Success of Study Replication in Ecology and Evolution
- Lowndes et al., 2017 - Our path to better science in less time using open data science tools
- Gehlman & Loken, 2013 - The garden of forking paths: Why multiple comparisons can be a problem, even when there is no “fishing expedition” or “p-hacking”