OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Even as policymakers seek to encourage economic development by addressing misallocation due to frictions in labor markets, the associated production externalities – such as air pollution – remain unexplored. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show access to rural roads increases agricultural fires and particulate emissions. Farm labor exits are a likely mechanism responsible for the increase in agricultural fires: rural roads cause movement of workers out of agriculture and induce farmers to use fire – a labor-saving but polluting technology – to clear agricultural residue or to make harvesting less labor-intensive. Overall, the adoption of fires due to rural roads increases infant mortality rate by 5.5% in downwind locations.
