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2007-2008 Environmental Economics Seminar Series

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The following list shows seminars in the 2007-2008 Environmental Economics Series. The upcoming seminars can be found here..

November 20, 2008 (2:00 to 3:30 pm), Room 4144, EPA West
Convergent Validity of Revealed and Stated Recreation Behavior with Quality Change: A Comparison of Multiple and Single Site Demands
John Whitehead (Appalachian State University)

The speaker and his co-authors consider the convergent validity of several demand models using beach recreation data. Two models employ multiple site data, the linked site-selection and trip frequency demand model and the Kuhn-Tucker demand system model. They exploit the effect of the existing variation in beach width on trip choices to analyze a 100 foot increase in beach width. They compare these models to a single site model where we jointly estimate revealed and stated preference data focusing on a hypothetical scenario that directly considers a 100 foot increase in beach width. In each case they develop estimates of the increased number of beach trips with an increase in beach width and the value of beach width. The trip estimates from each of the three models are similar and convergent valid. The convergent validity statistical test on willingness to pay suggests that the estimates converge between these models. However, the difference in magnitude is large.
The paper on which this presentation is based will likely be updated before November 20, and the link will then automatically update:
http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/aplwpaper/07-17.htm

October 23, 2008 (10:30am to noon), Room 4114, EPA West
Decentralization and Water Pollution Spillovers: Evidence from the Re-drawing of County Boundaries in Brazil
Mushfiq Mobarak (Yale University, School of Management)

Abstract:
The presenter will examine the effect of political decentralization on pollution spillovers across jurisdictional boundaries. Upstream water use has spillover effects on downstream jurisdictions, and greater decentralization (i.e. a larger number of political jurisdictions managing the same river) may exacerbate these spillovers, as upstream communities have fewer incentives to restrain their members from polluting the river at the border. The presenter will use GIS to combine a panel dataset of 9,000 water quality measures collected at 321 monitoring stations across Brazil with maps of the evolving boundaries of the 5500 Brazilian counties to study (a) whether water quality degrades across jurisdictional boundaries due to increases in pollution close a river’s exit point out of a jurisdiction, and (b) what the net effect of a decentralization initiative on water quality is, once the opposing impacts of inter-jurisdictional pollution spillovers and increased local government budgets for cleaning up the water are taken into account. The researchers took advantage of the fact that Brazil changes county boundaries at every election cycle, so that the same river segment may cross different numbers of counties in different years. The presenter finds evidence of strategic enforcement of water pollution regulations; there is a significant increase in pollution close to the river’s exit point from the upstream county, and conversely a significant decrease in pollution when the measure is taken farther downstream from the point of entrance. Pollution increases by 2.3% for every kilometer closer a river gets to the exiting border, but in the stretch within 5 kilometers of the border this increase jumps to 18.6% per kilometer. Thus the greatest polluting activity appears to be very close to the exiting border. The researchers' theoretical model coupled with the empirical results are strongly suggestive that these results are evidence of strategic spillovers rather than spurious correlation between county splits and
pollution stemming from changing population density. Even in the presence of such negative externalities, the net effect of decentralization on water quality is essentially zero, since some other beneficial by-products of decentralization (in particular, increased local government budgets) offsets the negative pollution spillover effects.

The paper was likely to have been updated before October 3, and the link would then automatically update: http://www.colorado.edu/Economics/courses/mobarak/brazil_water.pdf

November 1, 2007 (2pm), Room 4144 EPA West
"Impact of Switching Production to Bioenergy Crops: The Switchgrass Example"
Scott McDonald (University of Sheffield), Sherman Robinson (University of Sussex) and Karen Thierfelder (U.S. Naval Academy)

Drs. Robinson and Thierfelder will present this seminar.

Abstract:
This paper reports the results from simulations that evaluate the general equilibrium effects of substituting switchgrass, a biomass, for crude oil in USA petroleum production. The new production process is less efficient and USA GDP declines slightly. As switchgrass production expands, USA agriculture contracts and the world price of cereals increases. The world price of crude oil falls as USA import demand declines. The net effect of the price and income changes is a general decline in economic welfare. Moreover, the declines in welfare are proportionately greater for developing countries who produce small quantities of agricultural commodities whose prices increase.


Thank you for supporting the NCEE Seminar Series. Stay tuned for more information on the 07-08 schedule.

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