On November 8-10, School of Economics Ph.D. candidates Christopher Blackburn and Anthony Harding presented at the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management’s 40th annual Fall Research Conference in Washington D.C. 

Christopher Blackburn presented his paper titled “Energy Efficiency and Production Networks.” In the paper, Christopher investigates how the aggregate benefits from energy efficiency improvements are shaped by the structure and existences of industrial supply chain networks. His main results show aggregate energy savings are largely determined by the indirect input relationships between sectors in the economy. For sectors with similar observable characteristics, variations in the structure of these indirect relationships can result in drastically different aggregate energy savings for the same energy efficiency improvement.

Anthony Harding presented “Bright Lights, Safe Nights? The Impact of Visibility on Crime“, a joint paper with Christopher Blackburn. In the paper, the authors examine how shocks to visibility from the conversion of older street light infrastructure to LED technology across the city of Los Angeles impacted local crime rates. The authors find that following the conversion program, street light retrofits accounted for about 30% of the reduction in crime in areas with converted street lights. This result suggests that retrofitting street lights with LED technology may provide local municipalities with additional benefits beyond their energy saving potential.

For more information, or to recieve a copy of their papers, please contact the authors at cblackburn8@gatech.edu or tony.harding@gatech.edu.