About:
- I am a fourth year PhD student in Sustainable Development at Columbia University.
- I research how U.S. public institutions shape/are shaped by natural resource use and the environment.
- Previously, I worked as a research assistant at the Climate Impact Lab.
- I hold a BA from Bowdoin College in Economics.
Email: m [dot] a [dot] norman [at] columbia [dot] edu
Working papers:
click title for abstract
Bottle Redemption, Wealth Transfers, and Informal Wages (link)
This paper shows that waste policy can improve birth outcomes in marginalized populations to a similar extent as EITC, a widely studied welfare program. Between 1973 and 1990, ten states introduced deposit refund programs for beverage containers. Policy introductions are associated with a .6-3.7% reduction in the incidence of low birth weight among mothers with less than a high school education. A simple labor supply model implies that deposit refund programs create opportunities for informal labor among the working poor. This paper’s results indicate that informal work in recycling alleviated gaps in welfare policy during the study period.
Empirical Tests of the Green Paradox for Climate Legislation w. Wolfram Schlenker (link)
The Green Paradox posits that fossil fuel markets respond to changing expectations about climate legislation, which limits future consumption, by shifting consumption to the present through lower present-day prices. We demonstrate that oil futures responded negatively to daily changes in the prediction market's expectations that the Waxman-Markey bill — the US climate bill discussed in 2009-2010 — would pass. This effect is consistent across various maturities as the proposed legislation would reset the entire price and consumption path, unlike temporary supply or demand shocks that phase out over time. The bill’s passage would have increased current global oil consumption by 2-4%. Furthermore, a strengthening of climate policy, as measured by monthly variations in media salience regarding climate policy over the last four decades, and two court rulings signaling limited future fossil fuel use, were associated with negative abnormal oil future returns. Taken together, our findings confirm that restricting future fossil fuel use will accelerate current-day consumption.