Xiaoyu Li

Xiaoyu Li is a PhD candidate in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at The Ohio State University. Li specializes in environmental and resource economics and her research is motivated by an interest in theoretically and empirically examining behavioral responses to environmental risk and the policy implications of risk exposure. She applies micro econometrics and numerical simulation methods to study risk exposure and community vulnerability to natural hazards, particularly in the context of coastal climate adaptation.

Xiaoyu’s job market paper shows that coastal adaptation through investment in beach nourishment (the process of re-building eroding beaches to reduce damage of storm and coastal erosion) has the unintended effect of increasing the rate of residential development, leading to nearly 20% more coastal properties in vulnerable areas that are exposed to future disasters. She models the time (using duration analysis) it takes for an empty parcel of land to be developed using parcel level data for coastal North Carolina. With novel instruments developed from spatial equilibrium theory and coastal geomorphology in a control function methodology to address the endogeneity of housing price and adaptation investments, she finds that risk reduction investment in beach nourishment accelerates residential development. This work is among the first to look at the supply side response of housing market to natural hazard and risk reduction measures and is requested for revision at the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

Li has always aspired to be an educator and believe that teaching can have a tremendous impact by helping the next generation develop critical thinking and a perspective to understand the world and to explore beyond our current knowledge. She has taught several undergraduate courses as a lab instructor for Operations Research in Agribusiness and Applied Economics, Econometric Applications in Agribusiness and Applied Economics, and Data Analysis for Agribusiness and Applied Economics, and as a teaching assistant for Principles of Food and Resource Economics. Li has received favorable feedback from leading faculty instructors and students who have consistently noted that she creates an atmosphere conducive to learning, she is genuinely interested in helping students, and they learn a great deal from her instruction.  

Li's job market paper is titled “Local adaptation and unintended coastal vulnerability: The effect of beach nourishment on residential development in North Carolina."

For additional information see Li's website: https://sites.google.com/view/xiaoyuli

Advisors:

Dr. H. Allen Klaiber, Dr. Sathya Gopalakrishnan