Essays on Spatial Analysis of Policy Impacts

This thesis is composed of two essays under the theme of spatial analysis of policy impacts. The objective of the first essay was to analyse how population dynamics affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The effects of population redistribution resulting from the South Korean government’s decentralization efforts on GHG emissions were assessed. Simulation results suggest that the direction of change in total GHG emissions depends on the share of the population redistributed from higher to lower population density regions. If the entire redistributed population of 877,000 persons expected from the government’s decentralization project were from the Seoul Area, annual CO₂e [carbon dioxide equivalent] would increase by 1.72%-2.26% compared to benchmark levels. Alternatively, more balanced migration between higher and lower population density regions, i.e., 65% of the 877,000 persons from higher-density locations to lower-density destinations and 35% from lower-density to higher-density regions, decreases CO₂e [carbon dioxide equivalent] by 1.49%-2.42%.

The second essay evaluated the impact of highway disbursement under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) on highway demand in the frame of cost and benefit analysis. Highway demand equation was estimated by employing a spatial Durbin model and panel data for the 48 contiguous US states during 1994-2008. The estimates from the equaiton were used to validate the hypothesis that the different highway disbursements caused different upwards shifts in the highway demand curves. The different shifts in demand curves resulted in a wide range of consumer surplus increases across states. The consumer surplus estimates, along with explicit and implicit costs associated with additional highway usage, were used to estimate the total net benefit of ARRA highway disbursement and the net benefits per dollar spent for each state. Estimated total net benefits for the 48 states as a result of the $27.2 billion in ARRA highway disbursements were $4.6 billion in, which yield an average net benefit of $0.17 per dollar spent.