Hello! My name is Amanda Ang. I am a postdoctoral researcher in Urban and Regional Economics at Aalto University. My main research interests are the economics of natural disasters, climate adaptation, and the use of quantitative spatial models. I received my PhD in Economics from University of Southern California in 2024.

See the latest version of my CV here.

Work in Progress

Paradise Lost: Population Growth and Wildfire Mitigation

Abstract: Wildfires are enormously costly events. Human causes make up 85 % of wildfire ignitions in the US. This paper examines household location choice as a driver of wildfire risk. I estimate an inverted U-shaped relationship between population density and wildfires: locations with medium population density have the highest ignition rates. Incorporating this relationship into a quantitative spatial model of Los Angeles County allows me to examine the effects of climate migration and potential policy solutions on wildfire risk. Preferences for moderate weather and risk-proportional taxation can help to mitigate increased wildfire damages associated with climate change.

Amenities in Quantitative Spatial Models with Andrii Parkhomenko and Daniel Angel.

Abstract: An indispensable feature of quantitative spatial models (QSM) are structural residuals that fit the distribution of residents across locations to the data. While they are often interpreted as amenities, do they actually represent observed amenities? We collect data on 41 amenities in the Los Angeles County, and then build a QSM to study the relationship between the structural residuals and observed amenities. We find that 45\% of the variation in the residuals is explained by observed amenities. This suggests that one should be judicious when interpreting these residuals as amenities. We also find that 14 percentage points of the explained variation is accounted for by natural amenities and 31 by man-made amenities. This supports modeling amenities as endogenous.

The Impacts of Asian Immigrants on School Performance and Local Housing Markets in the U.S. with Eunjee Kwon and Siqi Zheng.

Abstract: This study examines the influence of Asian immigrants on housing price appreciation, distinguishing between the effects of education and non-education factors, based on US county-level data (2009 - 2018). To address potential endogeneity concerns, instrumental variables are employed to account for Asian immigrants' location choices and school performance outcomes. The results indicate that housing price appreciation associated with Asian immigrants is primarily observed in counties with the highest Asian population shares. Furthermore, the presence of Asian students contributes to improved academic performance among students of other races, with approximately one-third of the housing price appreciation linked to enhanced school outcomes.

Presented: ASSA Annual Meeting 2023

Evaluating the social cost of flooding in developing country cities: Evidence from Sao Paulo, Brazil with Peter Christensen

Abstract: A growing literature seeks to evaluate the resilience of transportation infrastructure in developing country cities and to target investments in infrastructure improvements. Much of this literature focuses on improved design, materials, and costs of resilient infrastructure, but relatively little is known about the economic benefits associated with reducing the impacts of weather events in a transportation system. This study presents some of the first estimates of the economic benefits associated with travel delays due to flood events in a developing country city. Our empirical strategy makes use of repeat observations of trip durations from Google’s traffic API to separately identify the general effects of precipitation events and the specific effects of delays that result specifically from infrastructure flooding. Our results suggest that the total economic effect of flood-induced travel delays in the city of Sāo Paulo is 125 million USD per year, which is 0.06% of the GDP of Sāo Paulo.

Presentations: pERE Seminar (2017), AERE Summer Meeting (2020), Smart Cities International Symposium (2021)

Publications

Should congested cities reduce their speed limits? Evidence from Sao Paulo, Brazil. (link)
Journal of Public Economics (2020) Amanda Ang, Peter Christensen and Renato Vieira.