Three essays on environment, economics and politics

This thesis consists of three essays that shed light on different aspects of the relationship between the environment, economic and politics. In the first chapter we consider the deployment of large hydropower dams in Vietnam, an effective infrastructure that converts water resources into clean and inexpensive electricity for the economy, and protects downstream people from floods. The cascade design is shown to make the system more resilient against adverse impacts of climate change. The second chapter estimates the impact of power outages in Vietnam on firm performance using an instrumental variable based on work in chapter 1 that captures the sensitivity of power reliability to weather-induced variability in river flow given that hydropower plays the key role in the economy. Progressive power policies are required as businesses, which become more dependent on electricity, are shown to be more vulnerable to power disruptions. The third chapter provides evidence that senatorial voting pattern for environmental issues in the US is responsive to natural disasters although the reactions tend to be slow, short-lived and not unidirectional. The preference for environmental stringency increases after human losses but falls after economic damages