A Full-Circle Experience for Colby Economist
Sanval Nasim ’08 teaches students about the importance of environmental economics
In developing countries, the interplay between economics, politics, and the environment can be as obscured as the smoggy air that circulates above.
Sanval Nasim ’08, assistant professor of economics, is devoted to finding clearings in that interplay, as the health of both people and the world around them depends on it.
Nasim’s research focuses on the economics of the environment in the Global South, a collective term referring to the world’s developing countries, characterized by low standards of living and weak economic and political institutions. As these countries’ economies continue to expand and develop, they place immense pressure on natural resources. Deteriorating environmental quality is the result, including air and water pollution, deforestation, water depletion, and land-use change.
The assistant professor is most interested in how citizens in developing countries respond to these changes, as well as how local governments can address such challenges despite resource and capacity constraints.
He’s been teaching at Colby since early in the pandemic, returning to his alma mater to pursue work most important to him. Currently, Nasim is teaching a senior seminar focused on applying an economics lens to understand the environmental challenges faced by countries in the Global South, as well as econometrics—the art and science of analyzing data to answer important economics questions.
“I deeply appreciate the privilege of teaching such motivated students, sharing with them some of the important questions I reflect on and explore in my research, and witnessing their intellectual and personal growth,” Nasim said. “People say I’ve come full-circle. Perhaps, but I know I’m really cherishing my time and experience here.”
‘This is what I want to pursue’
Born and raised in Pakistan, Nasim left his native country as a 16-year-old to attend an international high school in New Mexico. By senior year, he was set on attending McGill University in Montreal, where he planned to study mechanical engineering. To his surprise, on graduation day he got an offer from Colby, where his high school guidance counselor had studied, lauding his liberal arts experience and recalling excellent squash opportunities.
Nasim accepted the offer, and made the long trek to Waterville.
Initially, Nasim anticipated becoming an engineering major. Yet, as his first year progressed, he decided to “cast his net wide” as his father in Pakistan had advised him to do, and gave the History and Economics departments a try.
Nasim loved his history classes. Having grown up in an environment that valued math and the sciences over other subjects, majoring in history allowed him to think about the economic, cultural, and sociopolitical patterns that have shaped the world in new and creative ways. He also credits his history professors for helping him write and communicate more concisely and effectively. “I’m in awe of how thoroughly they read and reviewed our papers, helping us think clearly and express our ideas in writing.”
Though Nasim immersed himself in his history major, a 200-level environmental economics course taught by Mitchell Family Professor of Economics, Emeritus Tom Tietenberg caught his interest, too. “A lot of exposure to economics happens through principles courses, where many of the ideas may seem abstract,” Nasim said. With Tietenberg, however, the ideas became tangible. Tietenberg’s Senior Seminar in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics sealed the deal.
“I loved that class so much that once I graduated, I just thought, ‘This is what I want to do going forward, this is what I want to pursue.’”
After graduation, Nasim moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for a nonprofit that served as a watchdog of the World Bank, overseeing its development and sustainability projects in the Global South. He soon enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the University of California, Riverside, where he studied environmental and natural resource economics and policy, exploring the economics of groundwater use in Pakistan in his dissertation.
Back home to Pakistan
By the time Nasim finished his Ph.D. in 2015, he had been living in the United States for 14 years. He decided to return to Pakistan and landed a tenure-track position in the economics department at Lahore University of Management Sciences.
”I never had the experience of knowing what it means to live life as an adult in a place where you’ve grown up,” he said. “Traversing spaces in Pakistan is very different from doing so in a country like the U.S. How do you negotiate the people, their cultural nuances, and their social disparities?”
Pakistan is in South Asia—not the Middle East, as is a popular misconception. Lahore is its second largest city, a metropolitan hub of 14 million people and capital of the Punjab province, a region of fertile plains traversed by several major rivers, mountain ranges, and small deserts. The country itself is a melting pot of various ethno-linguistic groups, each with distinct identities and customs. On the whole, however, Pakistan is in the midst of an industrial and economic transformation, which comes with high resource consumption, and consequently, pollution.
During his first semester teaching in Lahore, Nasim noticed the smog. “There was this terrible smog event,” he recalled. “The air was yellow and dense, and people were coughing all over the place. It was horrific.”
Seeking a solution
Nasim knew this event was not unusual. Given its growth, Lahore is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and smog events are prevalent.
“My students were concerned,” he said, recognizing the link between the concepts they were learning in class and the poor air quality around them. “I knew some of the basic economic models dealing with air pollution, but I had never really delved deeply into it,” Nasim noted. “Given the crisis, I became interested in figuring out what was happening and what we can do about it.”
Pollution occurs when the air is treated as an open-access resource, a free repository for pollutants, regulated by no one. It’s like having a spare room in a house of hoarders; everyone throws their junk in there, but no one person owns it, and as a result, no one feels responsible to keep it tidy or clean it up.
Developed countries deal with this problem by enforcing strict regulations, ensuring polluters meet air-quality standards and penalizing those who violate them. In developing countries like Pakistan, however, even the strongest regulations on paper often lack the institutional structure necessary to ensure they are followed.
Moreover, while it may seem that citizens exposed to constant smog would have access to air-quality information and protective gear, this is not always the case. Information and safety are expensive, and whether people in developing countries are willing to pay for these basic goods has remained a gray area, even when their health depends upon it.
On the ground research
That’s where Nasim’s research comes into play. He and his collaborators devised an experiment in which they provided air-quality forecasts to residents of Lahore. They also offered training so residents could learn to predict air quality themselves.
The goal? Determine if citizens cared enough to be willing to pay for air-quality forecasts as well as particulate filtering masks, which offer protection from harmful air, and assess whether citizens altered their behavior—spending more time indoors, for example—after receiving forecasts. Further, Nasim wanted to see if the source of the information—government or NGO—made a difference in citizens’ willingness to pay.
‘When I’m teaching students, I want them to come out more thoughtful and engaging individuals who can contemplate the world in more complex ways, develop more self awareness, know who they are, place themselves in larger society, and reflect deeply on the big challenges that humanity and our planet face.’
Sanval Nasim ’08, assistant professor of economics
Over the following months, Nasim and his team discovered that people were willing to pay for forecasts—as much as 60 percent of the cost of mobile internet services—and that trained resident-forecasters retained their prediction skills. Both receivers of information and forecasters also expressed a willingness to buy N95 masks to further protect themselves from the smog, and began adjusting the way they spent their days to avoid the most harmful windows of pollution. And, the source of the information did not matter to citizens, so long as it was provided consistently.
With that evidence, Nasim and his team demonstrated that urban dwellers in developing countries exhibit considerable demand for air-quality information and pollution-filtering masks, and they can significantly improve their welfare with access to these goods and services. The numbers suggest that in a city like Lahore, citizens’ demand for air-quality information outweighs the cost of establishing a comprehensive air-quality monitoring system.
He continued this work after returning to Colby to teach, and spent a sabbatical year in Lahore, where he partnered with the city’s Environmental Protection Department to provide workshops relaying the practical implementations of his research to both policymakers and citizens. With support from the International Growth Center, Nasim and his team began to create a smog alert network, ensuring government entities know what actions to take to mitigate pollution and citizens know how to protect themselves in case of a smog emergency.
“We’re interested in how citizens engage with these alerts, and if they are able to put pressure on local officials and bureaucrats to address this issue in the long run,” he said.
Nasim would like to involve Colby students in this research.
“When I’m teaching students,” Nasim said, “I want them to come out more thoughtful and engaging individuals who can contemplate the world in more complex ways, develop more self awareness, know who they are, place themselves in larger society, and reflect deeply on the big challenges that humanity and our planet face. I also hope they can critically think about the theoretical and applied tools that economics provides in addressing these challenges, while recognizing that our field is one of many other perspectives in dissecting the world.”
