1,721,143 research outputs found
Measuring the Value of Health Improvements from Great Lakes Cleanup
Full text linkExposure to pollutants in the Great Lakes Region can have significant effects on human health. Some forms of pollution affect humans directly, through the air we breathe and water we drink. Other forms of pollution affect humans indirectly, for example through consumption of contaminated fish. In this paper the authors describe methods to measure health benefits in monetary and nonmonetary terms in the context of reductions in pollutants as part of a program to improve the environment in the Great Lakes. The paper is meant to be an introduction to this topic for a general audience interested in the Great Lakes.
Efficiency and Political Economy of Pollution Control with Ancillary Benefits: An Application to NOx Control in the Chesapeake Bay Airshed
Full text linkThis paper examines implications for cost-effective allocation of pollution controls when preferences of coalitions organized along regional lines, or according to preferences for air vs. water quality improvements, are accounted for. Results are compared to a base case in which NOx emissions reductions must satisfy only a water quality standard, and total costs are minimized over emissions sources. Relative to base-case result that marginal control costs must be equal across sources, stronger relative preferences for air imply shifting of control toward sources that produce greater ancillary benefits to air quality. Regional differences may require side payments to induce cooperation where benefits are low, but this will not affect how controls themselves should be allocated.
The Second-Best Use of Social Cost Estimates
Full text linkA significant literature has developed to estimate the damages to third parties from new electricity generation technologies. This paper focuses on how such estimates can be profitably used in the present regulatory environment, and in the potential new environment that may result from restructuring in the electricity industry.
Cost-Effective NOx Control in the Eastern United States
Full text linkReducing nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in the eastern United States has become the focus of efforts to meet ozone air quality goals and will be useful for reducing particulate matter (PM) concentrations in the future. This paper addresses many aspects of the debate over the appropriate approach for obtaining reductions in NOx emissions from point sources beyond those called for in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Data on NOx control technologies and their associated costs, spatial models linking NOx emissions and air quality, and benefit estimates of the health effects of changes in ozone and PM concentrations are combined to allow an analysis of alternative policies in thirteen states in the eastern United States. The first part of the study examines the cost and other consequences of a command-and-control approach embodied in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) NOx SIP call, which envisions large reductions in NOx from electric utilities and other point sources. These results are compared to the alternative policy of ton-for-ton NOx emissions trading, similar to that proposed by the EPA for utilities. We find that emission reduction targets can be met at roughly 50% cost savings under a trading program when there are no transaction costs. The paper examines a number of alternative economic incentive policies that have the potential to improve upon the utility NOx trading plan proposed by EPA, including incorporation of other point sources in the trading program, incorporation of ancillary PM benefits to ozone reductions in the trading program, and trading on the basis of ozone exposures that incorporates the spatial impact of emissions on ozone levels. For the latter analysis, we examine spatially differentiated permit systems for reducing ozone exposures under different and uncertain meteorological conditions, including an empirical analysis of the trade-off between the reliability (or degree of certainty) of meeting ozone exposure reduction targets and the cost of NOx control. Finally, several policies that combine costs and health benefits from both ozone and PM reductions are compared to command-and-control and single-pollutant trading policies. The first of these is a full multipollutant trading system that achieves a health benefit goal, with the interpollutant trading ratios governed by the ratio of unit health benefits of ozone and PM. Then, a model that maximizes aggregate benefits from both ozone and PM exposure reductions net of the costs of NOx controls is estimated. EPA’s program appears to be reasonably cost-effective compared to all of the other more complex trading programs we examined. It may even be considered an optimal policy that maximizes net aggregate benefits if the high estimate of benefits is used in which mortality risk is linked to ozone exposure. Without this controversial assumption, however, we find that EPA’s NOx reduction target is far too large.
Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reductions: Does Latency Matter?
Full text linkUsing results from two contingent valuation surveys conducted in Canada and the United States, we explore the effect of a latency period on willingness to pay (WTP) for reduced mortality risk using both structural and reduced form approaches. We find that delaying the time at which the risk reduction occurs by 10 to 30 years significantly reduces WTP for respondents aged 40 to 60 years. Additionally, we estimate implicit discount rates equal to 8% for Canada and 4.5% for the United States—both well within the range established previously in the literature.value of a statistical life, mortality risks, cost–benefit analysis
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Does the Value of a Statistical Life Vary with Age and Health Status? Evidence from the United States and Canada
Full text linkMuch of the justification for environmental rulemaking rests on estimates of the benefits to society of reduced mortality rates. Yet the literature providing estimates of the willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reductions measures the value that healthy, prime-aged adults place on reducing their risk of dying, whereas the majority of statistical lives saved by environmental programs, according to epidemiological studies, appear to be the lives of older people and people with chronically impaired health. This paper provides an empirical assessment of the effects of age and baseline health on WTP for mortality risk reductions by reporting the results of two contingent valuation surveys designed to test the above hypotheses. One survey was administered in-person to residents of Hamilton, Ontario, and the other to a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents using the Internet. Both surveys elicited respondents’ WTP for reductions in mortality risk of different magnitudes. Respondents were limited to persons aged 40 years and older, including those older than 60, to examine the impact of age on WTP. Extensive information was collected about each respondent’s health status to see whether it systematically influenced WTP. Our results provide weak support for the notion that WTP declines with age, but only after age 70. Specifically, in our Canadian sample, WTP declines by about 30% after age 70 compared with WTP at younger ages. There is no such statistically significant decline, however, in the U.S. sample. We similarly find no support for the idea that people who have cancer or chronic heart or lung disease are willing to pay less to reduce their risk of dying than people without these illnesses. If anything, people with these illnesses are willing to pay more.willingness to pay, mortality, contingent valuation, age, health status
Overcoming Public Aversion to Congestion Pricing
Full text linkTransportation authorities have consistently failed to employ economic incentives on major roadways--i.e. time-of-day pricing or "congestion fees"--to internalize the costs of congestion. In principle at least, such tolls can easily be shown to increase social welfare by making motorists pay something closer to the full social costs of their driving decisions. In addition, recent advances in electronics make it possible to implement such fees fairly cheaply and non-intrusively. While these same authorities generally understand and acknowledge the case for using congestion fees, they also claim that their use is politically infeasible because too many motorists would suffer large increases in commuting costs. This is the puzzle: If congestion tolls truly do advance social welfare, why is it so difficult to find a way to implement them? Two common explanations for this difficulty are the following: (i) The public perceives, or politicians fear that they would perceive, such fees simply as tax increases. If so, they might be responsive to an explicit promise to return the money in some way. (ii) Motorists dislike congestion fees because they find them coercive, in that they often have few if any practical alternatives to paying the fee. If so, then a policy option that offers motorists a choice of toll lanes and the more customary free lanes may be more attractive than a policy that policy of tolls on all lanes. We have completed a survey of Southern California residents designed to test these hypotheses. Unlike most opinion surveys on congestion pricing, our survey was quite explicit about the fate of the collected revenues. For example, we presented respondents with policies that returned a substantial portion of the revenues to the public, either in the form of cash (through reductions in sales taxes and vehicle registration fees or through income tax credits) or in the form of coupons to be used for vehicle emissions equipment repair, transit, and the like. In the past, most surveys have not been explicit about the revenues, or they have stated that revenue use was to be for improved highways, transit, or other public purposes. We find that a promise to offset the imposition of congestion fees by other taxes can result in a 7 percentage point increase in support for congestion pricing policies, and the restriction of congestion pricing to a single lane on a freeway attracts from 9 to 17 percentage points of additional support.
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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