Michael Cary

Research Assistant Professor | Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Virginia Tech | macary@vt.edu

Education

  • Ph.D. Natural Resource Economics - West Virginia University (2023)
  • M.A. Economics - Virginia State University (2014)
  • B.A. History - Virginia Commonwealth University (2011)

    • Research Interests

  • Environmental Economics
  • Exposure to Environmental Factors
  • International Climate Policy
  • Land Use Policy
  • Gender, Race, and Economics
  • Sports Economics
  • Network Theory & Graph Theory
  • Applied Machine Learning

    • Welcome

    Welcome to my professional website! I am a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech. My research focuses primarily in the area of environmental economics, studying the environmental and economic consequences of climate policy as well as how exposure to environmental factors affects people’s productivity and well-being. I also work in regional economics, gender and race, and even network/graph theory. For more on this, please check out my Research page or my CV.
    My job market paper, Road Network Structure and Air Pollution: Moving Beyond the Fundamental Law of Road Congestion, asks if the structure of road networks affects pollution outcomes. To do this, I develop a theoretical framework of pollution stocks and flows which includes an effect of road network topology on vehicular emissions. Using a Hausman-Taylor IV model, I ultimately find that better connected road networks (fewer bottlenecks) lead to lower levels of pollution via reduced congestion, and that more circuitous road networks also lead to lower levels of pollution via an increased opportunity cost of driving. I then confirm these mechanisms are indeed responsible for the observed effects by regressing measures of congestion and commute times against the meaures of road network structure.