News

Find the most recent peer-reviewed published research focused on the economics of sustainable communities:

For three CEOS mini-grant winners, $2,000 is helping them buy data and equipment, conduct surveys, and travel to research sites (once COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed).  

Graduate student mini-grant winners Frederick Nyanzu, Seojeong Oh, and Brian Waters are all in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics working on applied economics research. 

Frederick is exploring the effect of sustainable agricultural practices and financial inclusion on food security from the Ghanaian context with his advisor, Kathy Baylis. 

Seojeong is seeking to understand the general public's preferences for agricultural nutrient-loss reduction strategies that impact their taxes and water sources. Seojeong works with research advisor Benjamin Gramig. 

Brian is using the grant towards providing a research-based, community-supported, economically sustainable roadmap to improving water sources in Malawi. Brian works with research advisor Paul McNamara.

Listen to our most recent podcast with Brenna Ellison* and Melissa Pflugh Prescott** as they discuss highlights from their recently published paper, “Examining Nutrition and Food Waste Trade-offs Using an Obesity Prevention Context” available in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

The authors address frequently asked questions, including:

You've stayed at one and maybe thought about becoming a host, but what happens when Airbnb comes to the neighborhood? See Minhong Xu and Yilan Xu's results here:

"What happens when Airbnb comes to the neighborhood: The impact of home-sharing on neighborhood investment."

Abstract

Home-sharing increases the potential economic returns to residential properties. We examine how the expansion of Airbnb has stimulated neighborhood investment. Our instrumental variable estimates show that a one-percent increase in Airbnb listings raised the number of residential renovation projects by 0.527 percent and the value of retail renovation investment by 3.691 percent in the following quarter. Meanwhile, the net growth of liquor, retail food, and entertainment business licenses increased by 2.067, 3.933, and 0.755, respectively. The investment effects were driven disproportionately by commercial hosts operating multiple listings and were more prominent in declining neighborhoods.

Save the date: Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics Workshop is back!

We are planning to hold the workshop for the twelfth year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Saturday, October 23 to Sunday, October 24, 2021 at the I-Hotel at the University of Illinois campus.

We hope COVID recovery will allow the workshop to be in person. However, we are planning for hybrid options and the possibility of needing to pivot online in case the pandemic resurges. One way or another, the Heartland Workshop will be back!

The goals of HERE@Illinois are, as always, to stimulate research and build community in environmental economics with partial focus on the Midwest. The workshop will bring people together to exchange ideas and foster new collaborations. Through selected paper sessions, it will identify pressing public policy issues and emerging research themes on environmental and resource economics. Finally, it will provide networking and development opportunities for graduate students and early career scholars in environmental and resource economics.