(Penn University, Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research) () As visible in Figure 2 fracking wells (blue) are concentrated in the northeast and southwest but scarce in between; both oil wells (red) and the land itself, on the other hand, are uniformly distributed. Accordingly, our regression rests on two premises: The land across the Marcellus Formation is relatively homogenous; this allows us to effectively compare the counties at a side-by-side level without having to control for geographic features. Fracking is regulated by the State of Pennsylvania and not influenced at the county-level; thus, the question of legal structures and frameworks are held constant in our analysis with minimal interference from counties. In the event that the mere presence of a well has an influence on and cannot be Ri generalized, we then subset the counties into two clusters based on whether fracking wells are present or not. Then, using a dummy variable regression: Ri = + + Xi’γ + α{Dfracking} βOi εi where if the numbers of fracking wells in a county exceeds 100, we test whether {Dfracking} =1 our assumption holds true.
(Penn University, Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research) () As visible in Figure 2 fracking wells (blue) are concentrated in the northeast and southwest but scarce in between; both oil wells (red) and the land itself, on the other hand, are uniformly distributed. Accordingly, our regression rests on two premises: The land across the Marcellus Formation is relatively homogenous; this allows us to effectively compare the counties at a side-by-side level without having to control for geographic features. Fracking is regulated by the State of Pennsylvania and not influenced at the county-level; thus, the question of legal structures and frameworks are held constant in our analysis with minimal interference from counties. In the event that the mere presence of a well has an influence on Ri and cannot be generalized, we then subset the counties into two clusters based on whether fracking wells are present or not. Then, using a dummy variable regression: Ri = α{Dfracking} + βOi + Xi’γ + εi where {Dfracking} =1 if the numbers of fracking wells in a county exceeds 100, we test whether our assumption holds true.
Team13-FrackingPaperFinal.docx