Oil, pollution, and crime: Three essays in public economics

The overall goal of this dissertation is to study important questions in public economics. In its three chapters, I look at peak world oil production and its implications for oil prices; cross-country pollution emission rates and implications for institutional quality; and finally, black-white arrest rates and implications for law enforcement discount factors. Each chapter of this dissertation combines new theory with robust empirical work to extend the quantitative frontier of research in public economics.