June 29, 2011

Robert Abare '13 contributed to this story

Prof. Dave Martin and Alicia Frank cycling during their research trip in India.

According to Alicia Frank '11, the joy of academic research is that you're never exactly sure where it might lead you.

Frank, an economics major who graduated in May, has been conducting an interdisciplinary research project on water scarcity at a national park in India. Her work is soon to be published in an academic journal. It was while researching and writing this paper that she got an idea for a second project, to estimate how natural resources affect property values. That research has now been published as well, giving Frank the distinction of publishing two papers during her undergraduate career.

Professor of Economics Dave Martin, who has led Davidson's Semester in India program, invited Frank to assist his study of water flows to India's Keoladeo National Park during her sophomore year. The park is a 7,346-acre wetland and bird sanctuary located in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, in the northern part of the country. Though the park is listed as a World Heritage Site, its ecosystem and wildlife have been severely threatened in recent years due to a recurring scarcity of water.

Martin and Frank conducted a review of the literature about the park during the summer of 2009. With funding from a Davidson College Abernethy Research Award and the Ratliff Endowment for Economics, they were able to travel to India for three weeks in May and June 2010 for a first-hand investigation.

With Martin as her mentor, Frank launched a multi-disciplinary study of Keoladeo National Park, looking at the economic, political, social, and environmental concerns surrounding the allocation of water in this water-deprived developing nation.

The more she investigated, the more complex this story became. Among the many dynamics affecting the wetland: 1) The Gambhiri River, which feeds the park, has been dammed upstream to provide water for farmers there. But in drought years the park's wildlife suffers, as does the park's tourism economy. 2) Farmers upstream are of a higher caste and have more political clout than farmers living closer to the park. 3) The state of Rajasthan controls the allocation of river water and cares most deeply about providing water for its farmers. However, as a national park Keoladeo is controlled by the Indian government, which has a mandate to supply it with adequate water. Already a small population of endangered Siberian cranes that once nested in the park have disappeared, prompting an outcry in the national press. 4) The Indian Supreme Court recently ruled that a 17-kilometer pipeline be constructed to bring water to the park, but that edict is now tied up in controversy.

"Ecological economics looks at how natural resources should be most efficiently allocated. The case of Keoladeo National Park has been such a fascinating and challenging topic to explore because there are so many factors to consider," Frank noted.

Alicia Frank in India

Frank spent the summer of 2010 writing a paper titled "Keoladeo National Park: Highlighting Surface Water Tensions." She presented her work at the International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment in Tucson in September 2010, and the paper was later accepted for publication in the affiliated journal, Interdisciplinary Environmental Review.

While surveying the economics literature on biodiversity and ecosystem valuation, Frank came across a unique methodology-known as the hedonic pricing model-that ultimately led to her second paper. This model uses regression analysis on home sale prices to estimate the marginal value of surrounding environmental amenities. With Charlotte in mind, Frank realized she could apply the hedonic model to the presence or lack of tree cover in large-scale housing developments. She enrolled in an econometrics class with Associate Professor Mark Foley and pitched her idea to determine the market value of tree cover.

To collect the data, Frank reached out to two geographers at the UNCC Center for Applied GIS, Doug Shoemaker and Ross Meentemeyer. Both are friends and colleagues of Dr. Martin's, and offered to help Frank apply geographic information system (GIS) technology to quantify tree canopy in Mecklenburg County. Using a parcel-level percentage measure of tree cover, Frank tested linear and quadratic regressions with interaction effects for home age and tree cover. Her results indicated that the marginal effect of tree cover varies based on home age and the existing level of tree cover, with older homes and thicker canopies displaying significantly positive marginal effects. Frank determined that, on average, for a ten percentage point increase in tree cover, home sale price increases by $716.76.

Frank's paper, titled "The Effect of Tree Cover on Home Sale Price," was selected as one of four finalists in the annual EconSources.com "Best Undergraduate Paper Competition" sponsored by the International Atlantic Economic Society. She presented her paper, alongside fellow finalists from Princeton, the University of Michigan, and the London School of Economics, at the society's annual conference in Charleston last semester, and an abstract will be included in the forthcoming issue of The Atlantic Economic Journal. The paper has also been published in its entirety in the Undergraduate Business & Economic Research Journal, affiliated with Berry College.

Frank is grateful to both her mentors for their unflagging support. She said, "Dr. Martin has been wonderful research adviser and mentor. We made a great team and had a lot of fun working together. Likewise, Dr. Foley always encouraged me to go above and beyond with the assignment. I knew he was just as interested and excited about the outcome as I was."

Frank is now living in Charlotte, soon to begin work as an analyst in capital markets and investment banking at Bank of America. She describes doing research as one of the most meaningful experiences during her time at Davidson. "I learned how to unravel a complex case, how to look at issues critically and with an interdisciplinary approach. It all came from working side-by-side with faculty."

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,900 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.

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