Dr. Atallah’s research program generates recommendations to growers, landowners, and resource managers to manage their crops and natural resources in a way that balances economic and ecological objectives and constraints. Examples include the economics of managing damaging organisms such as pests, diseases, and invasive species and beneficial organisms such as pollinators, within and across farms and forestlands. Shadi is an Associate Director of CEOS with Hope Michelson.
If you visited a meadow frequently as a child, would you want more to live near a natural area as an adult? Perhaps you were in a nature club in primary school; would you be more likely to volunteer for conservation efforts once you had your own income? How much does early life experience with nature affect the value you place on nature as an adult ?
University of Illinois doctoral student Liqing Li started thinking about this question at the 2017 Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics Workshop. A speaker was talking about environmental justice: how poor minority populations often live in highly polluted areas, and the next generation follows that pattern due to income constraints. Liqing wondered, “What if your childhood experience also affects your preference for the type of neighborhood or environment where you live? Would that also affect people’s willingness to pay for environmental protection around them?”
Having experiences with nature can help people build up nature-related “amenity capital”. People with such capital may gain higher utility from nature in their later stage of lives. “Think about it. If you live in an environment as a child with
Luoye Chen is an Ph.D. student in the ACE, with research interests in environmental and resource economics. His main research agenda aims at understanding the human-environmental nexus related to biodiversity, land-use decisions, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. His research integrates new forms of data and use modern econometric and machine learning method these sustainability issues.
Akito studies intra-household labor supply and decision-making regarding time use for household members. The core interests of his research lie in answering the question of what drives children to work? Who within a household work when a household has to supply labor? His doctoral research investigates the water security (cost of water and its consumption) and intra-household labor allocation for fetching water at the time of weather shocks in Africa.
Jaeseok’s research aim is to help farmers make rational farm input decisions through Precision Agriculture (PA) technology and Geographical Information System (GIS). Through data-intensive farm experiments, the research determines pervasive over-applied seed and fertilizer problems in farmers’ decision-making processes in large corn and soybean fields in the U.S. This research aims to prevent fertilizer misuse in crop production that contaminates groundwater. Jaeseok comes from Seoul, South Korea and hopes his young daughter will grow up living on clean soil and water.
Hiroshi examines how fuel economy standards in the US can reduce pollutant emissions through auto manufacturers’ compliance and households’ vehicle purchase and usage. His work contributes to designing efficient and effective regulations. He enjoys road trips with his family to historical and natural sites around the US.
