Grant Benjamin

PhD Candidate in Economics at the University of Toronto

Working papers

“Braking Habits: The Impact of Leading Pedestrian Intervals.” Working paper.

Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Public Economics.
Presented at: 19th North American Meeting of the Urban Economics Association

Abstract
After introducing traffic safety measures, motorists often adopt riskier driving habits that offset the intended safety improvement. Exploiting a quasi-natural experiment in Toronto, I investigate how leading pedestrian intervals, advance walk signals that provide pedestrians a head start when crossing an intersection before motorists, impact pedestrian safety and influence motorist behaviour. I estimate that leading pedestrian intervals decrease the probability of a pedestrian collision at an intersection by 39%, with a 56% decrease in the likelihood of a pedestrian fatality or major injury. Rather than a behavioural offset, I determine that leading pedestrian intervals elicit a positive behavioural response from motorists to improve traffic safety.

“Mortality, temperature, and public health provision: A comment on Cohen and Dechezlepretre (2022)” Working paper.

with Benjamin Couillard and Jonathan Hall.
I4R Discussion Paper Series.

Abstract
Cohen and Dechezleprêtre (2022) investigate the heterogeneous impact of temperature on mortality across Mexico, and how affordable healthcare services that target the low-income population attenuate the mortality effects of weather events. They find that while extreme temperatures are more dangerous than less extreme temperatures, the increased frequency of non-extreme temperatures mean these temperatures cause more deaths. First, we reproduce the paper's main findings, uncovering a minor coding error that has a trivial effect on the main results. Second, we test the robustness of the results to clustering at the state level, omitting precipitation, and using a different weighting scheme. The original results are robust to all of these changes.

Works In Progress

“Unlocking Construction Productivity”

“Spatial Spillovers in the Attention Economy”

“Urban Reserves”

with Stephan Heblich

Non-Economics Publications

“Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism: Best Practices and Standardizations”

with Matthew John Cross.
Handbook of Security Science. September 28, 2022. Published Version.

Abstract
Preventing and/or countering violent extremism (P/CVE) involves the use of coercive or non-coercive means to dissuade individuals or groups from engaging in violent extremism and to mitigate recruitment, support, facilitation, or engagement of ideologically motivated terrorism by non-state actors. There is no defined set of practices, methods, or approaches used to evaluate the impact of P/CVE, but a rise in extremism, from the continued threat of Salafi-Jihadist terrorism to the rise of alt-right extremism, has forced practitioners in the field to understand who their target audience is before they begin the development of countermeasure programs. The following chapter sets out an approach for standardizing and regularizing a scope of best practices that should be used in the development of any P/CVE programs, using a simple checklist of five sequential steps that help to identify what P/CVE program is best used. This checklist will help identify the target audience, the use of prevention methods or countering methods, the type of engagement (direct or indirect), the type of program to be used, and the intricacies of the P/CVE program itself. These practices are supplemented by current examples of their use, and they will demonstrate how the wrong strategy applied to the wrong target can result in an ineffective program. This chapter provides a means for practitioners and academics to gain an introductory understanding of current best practices available for P/CVE across the spectrum of extremism and the ability for a simplified process to determine how to approach their own program’s target audience.

“Negative COVID-19 vaccine information on Twitter: content analysis”

with Niko Yiannakoulias, J Connor Darlington, and Catherine E Slavik.
JMIR infodemiology. August 29, 2022. Published Version.

Abstract
Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, have a role in spreading anti-vaccine opinion and misinformation. Vaccines have been an important component of managing the COVID-19 pandemic, so content that discourages vaccination is generally seen as a concern to public health. However, not all negative information about vaccines is explicitly anti-vaccine, and some of it may be an important part of open communication between public health experts and the community.