题    目：Government and Nature: Evidence from the Distribution of Flood Damages in China

嘉    宾： 胡雨霄  PhD. Candidate 伦敦政治经济学院

主持人： 喻    洋 副教授 上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院

时    间：2025年1月8日（周三）13:30-15:00

地    点：上海交通大学徐汇校区安泰经济与管理学院A407

内容简介：
With increasing flood risks, it is increasingly important to understand the impact of government interventions that reallocate flood damages. In 2000, the Chinese government designated 96 Flood Detention Basin (FDB) counties, allocating lower-elevation areas within these counties for temporary floodwater storage. During severe flood events, floodwater may be diverted to these FDB counties to protect downstream urban centers. We evaluate the aggregate and distributional impacts of the FDB policy. Difference-in-differences results show that if a county is selected to the FDB list, county-level firm entry and firm-level fixed asset investments would decrease by 15.9% and 19.7%, respectively. Overall, FDB designation results in a 10.7% reduction in county-level nighttime light intensity. We then develop a spatial general equilibrium model that captures trade linkages among FDB counties, protected cities, and other regions. By comparing the actual output to a counterfactual scenario without FDBs, we find that as FDBs absorb more floodwater, the policy’s output gains increase; however, this comes at the cost of growing inequality between FDB counties and others. In summary, FDBs may improve economic resilience against floods, but the economic cost is taken disproportionately by rural counties.

演讲人简介：
Yuxiao is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the London School of Economics. She uses causal identification tools, quantatitve spatial models, and engineering models to study environment, urban, development, and political economy. She is particularly interested in analyzing the spatial impact of environmental policies, with a particular emphasis on understanding the trade-off between efficiency and equity.