acase@tulane.edu / I present three essays in applied microeconomics. In the first, I use police records to explore whether changing self defense policies, known as Stand Your Ground, have differential effects across race. I find that implementing these policies leads to an additional 1.611 monthly killings of black Alleged Perpetrators of Crimes, 70.8 percent of whom are killed by black citizens, while only causing an additional 0.345 monthly killings of white Alleged Perpetrators, 97.7 percent of whom are killed by white citizens. In the second, I examine the causal relationship between waterborne uranium exposure and birth outcomes in order to more fully understand the external costs of the activities that increase the probability of human exposure to uranium. I find that waterborne uranium contamination does not cause an observable decrease in human capital endowment proxies. In the third, I estimate the national average passive use value for Alaskan National Parks. I find that respondents are willing to pay $115 to $409 for a 5 percent expansion of the Denali National Park. / 1 / Michael Steven Spanbauer