IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/euyj6_v2.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Light Rail Construction on Regional On-Road CO2 Emissions Per Capita

Author

Listed:
  • Credit, Kevin

Abstract

As per capita on-road CO2 emissions continue to rise in the US, a better understanding of the emissions-reduction benefits of building a new transit system is needed. Employing a novel quasi-experimental event study methodology, the results of this paper indicate that after 8 years of operation, construction of a light rail system has led to a small but significant reduction in regional on-road CO2 per capita of 8.4% - 12.9%. These results are robust to selection of control group and are larger than the estimated impact of light rail construction on population density (1.0%), evaluated in a comparative quasi-“placebo” study.

Suggested Citation

  • Credit, Kevin, 2025. "The Impact of Light Rail Construction on Regional On-Road CO2 Emissions Per Capita," OSF Preprints euyj6_v2, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:euyj6_v2
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/euyj6_v2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/67d14d4aaa047ff5aca7282e/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/euyj6_v2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glaeser, Edward L. & Kahn, Matthew E., 2010. "The greenness of cities: Carbon dioxide emissions and urban development," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 404-418, May.
    2. Reid Ewing & Shima Hamidi, 2014. "Longitudinal Analysis of Transit's Land Use Multiplier in Portland (OR)," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 80(2), pages 123-137, April.
    3. Gudipudi, Ramana & Fluschnik, Till & Ros, Anselmo García Cantú & Walther, Carsten & Kropp, Jürgen P., 2016. "City density and CO2 efficiency," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 352-361.
    4. Sarah Miller & Norman Johnson & Laura R Wherry, 2021. "Medicaid and Mortality: New Evidence From Linked Survey and Administrative Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1783-1829.
    5. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2023. "On event studies and distributed‐lags in two‐way fixed effects models: Identification, equivalence, and generalization," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 695-713, August.
    6. David H. Autor, 2003. "Outsourcing at Will: The Contribution of Unjust Dismissal Doctrine to the Growth of Employment Outsourcing," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-42, January.
    7. Marynia Kolak & Luc Anselin, 2020. "A Spatial Perspective on the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 43(1-2), pages 128-153, January.
    8. Athey, Susan & Imbens, Guido W., 2022. "Design-based analysis in Difference-In-Differences settings with staggered adoption," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(1), pages 62-79.
    9. Greene, David L. & Evans, David H. & Hiestand, John, 2013. "Survey evidence on the willingness of U.S. consumers to pay for automotive fuel economy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1539-1550.
    10. Lee, Sungwon & Lee, Bumsoo, 2014. "The influence of urban form on GHG emissions in the U.S. household sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 534-549.
    11. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881, Enero-Abr.
    12. Ho, Daniel E. & Imai, Kosuke & King, Gary & Stuart, Elizabeth A., 2007. "Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 199-236, July.
    13. Ho, Daniel & Imai, Kosuke & King, Gary & Stuart, Elizabeth A., 2011. "MatchIt: Nonparametric Preprocessing for Parametric Causal Inference," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 42(i08).
    14. Kevin Credit, 2018. "Transit-oriented economic development: The impact of light rail on new business starts in the Phoenix, AZ Region, USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(13), pages 2838-2862, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille, 2020. "Difference-in-Differences Estimators of Intertemporal Treatment Effects," Papers 2007.04267, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    2. Kevin Credit & Matthew Lehnert, 2024. "A structured comparison of causal machine learning methods to assess heterogeneous treatment effects in spatial data," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 483-510, October.
    3. Andre Rossi Oliveira, 2024. "Evaluating the Short-term Causal Effect of Early Alert on Student Performance," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 65(7), pages 1395-1419, November.
    4. Andrea Angeli & Patrizia Lattarulo & Eugenio Palmieri & Maria Grazia Pazienza, 2023. "Tax evasion and tax amnesties in regional taxation," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 40(1), pages 343-369, April.
    5. Dettmann, Eva & Giebler, Alexander & Weyh, Antje, 2020. "Flexpaneldid: A Stata toolbox for causal analysis with varying treatment time and duration," IWH Discussion Papers 3/2020, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    6. Liu, Bingcai & Roopsind, Anand & Sohngen, Brent, 2024. "Overlapping extractive land use rights increases deforestation and forest degradation in managed natural production forests," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    7. Richard Aviles-Lopez & Juan de Dios Luna del Castillo & Miguel Ángel Montero-Alonso, 2023. "Exploratory Matching Model Search Algorithm (EMMSA) for Causal Analysis: Application to the Cardboard Industry," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-34, October.
    8. Davide Viviano & Jelena Bradic, 2019. "Synthetic learner: model-free inference on treatments over time," Papers 1904.01490, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    9. Zhonghua Cheng & Xiaowen Hu, 2023. "The effects of urbanization and urban sprawl on CO2 emissions in China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 1792-1808, February.
    10. Matilde Cappelletti & Leonardo M. Giuffrida, 2024. "Targeted Bidders in Government Tenders," CESifo Working Paper Series 11142, CESifo.
    11. Chervier, Colas & Le Velly, Gwenolé & Ezzine-de-Blas, Driss, 2019. "When the Implementation of Payments for Biodiversity Conservation Leads to Motivation Crowding-out: A Case Study From the Cardamoms Forests, Cambodia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 499-510.
    12. Mansaray, Alhassan & Coleman, Simeon & Ataullah, Ali & Sirichand, Kavita, 2021. "Residual government ownership in public-private partnership projects," Journal of Government and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(C).
    13. Xin Nie & Jianxian Wu & Han Wang & Weijuan Li & Chengdao Huang & Lihua Li, 2022. "Contributing to carbon peak: Estimating the causal impact of eco‐industrial parks on low‐carbon development in China," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(4), pages 1578-1593, August.
    14. Malgouyres, Clément & Mayer, Thierry & Mazet-Sonilhac, Clément, 2021. "Technology-induced trade shocks? Evidence from broadband expansion in France," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    15. Gudipudi, Ramana & Rybski, Diego & Lüdeke, Matthias K.B. & Zhou, Bin & Liu, Zhu & Kropp, Jürgen P., 2019. "The efficient, the intensive, and the productive: Insights from urban Kaya scaling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 155-162.
    16. repec:osf:osfxxx:85jq9_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Qing Su, 2017. "Travel Demand Management Policy Instruments, Urban Spatial Characteristics, and Household Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Travel in the US Urban Areas," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(3), pages 157-166.
    18. Alan Sage & Mike Langen & Alex van de Minne, 2023. "Where is the opportunity in opportunity zones?," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(2), pages 338-371, March.
    19. Damian Clarke & Kathya Tapia-Schythe, 2021. "Implementing the panel event study," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 21(4), pages 853-884, December.
    20. José M. Alonso & Rhys Andrews, 2025. "Does not‐for‐profit corporatization of local public services improve performance?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 612-631, March.
    21. Rigdon, Joseph & Berkowitz, Seth A. & Seligman, Hilary K. & Basu, Sanjay, 2017. "Re-evaluating associations between the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation and body mass index in the context of unmeasured confounders," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 112-124.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:euyj6_v2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.