We synthesize and review retrospective analyses of federal air quality regulations to examine the contributions Clean Air Act (CAA) vast improvements seen since 1970. Geographic heterogeneity in stringency affects emissions, public health, compliance costs, employment. Cap-and-trade has delivered greater emission reductions at lower cost than conventional mandates, yet fallen short textbook ide...

We study the effect of outdoor air pollution on the productivity of indoor workers at a pear-packing factory. Increases in fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a pollutant that readily penetrates indoors, leads to significant decreases in productivity, with effects arising at levels below air quality standards. In contrast, pollutants that do not travel indoors, such as ozone, have little, if any, ...

It seems to be a not uncommonly held view that intertemporal banking and borrowing of tradeable permits might tilt the ‘prices vs. quantities’debate towards looking relatively more favorably upon time-flexible quantities. The present paper shows that this view is incorrect for a natural dynamic extension of the original ‘prices vs. quantities’ information structure, which here allows the firms ...

We examine whether property price differentials reflecting flood risk increase following a large flood event, and whether this change is temporary or permanent. We use single-family residential property sales in Dougherty County, Georgia, between 1985 and 2004 in a difference-in-differences spatial hedonic model framework. After the 1994 “flood of the century,” prices of properties in the 100ye...

Single-site recreation demand and dichotomous choice contingent valuation analyses are typically conducted by implementing models containing strong parametric assumptions, which are rarely underpinned by theoretical arguments. This work illustrates how these assumptions can be relaxed and the estimation conducted semiparametrically by using generalized additive models (GAMs). This approach dire...

Taking advantage of the structure of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA), we study the tradeoff between efficiency and equity associated with different levels of discretionary power when delegating regulatory authority to lower levels of government. Exploiting an instrumental variables approach, we provide evidence that the benefits of the 1990 CAAA were highly localized and accrued dispro...

For a contingent valuation (CV) study of a bundle of water quality improvements, this paper tests whether the sum of the estimated willingness to pay (WTP) for each individual part of the package, evaluated incrementally, equals the estimated WTP for the entire bundle—as implied by standard utility theory. This is the first application of the adding-up test using incremental parts and Carson an...

This paper argues that life satisfaction data can be used to value natural disasters. We discuss the strengths of this approach, compare it to traditional methods and apply it to estimate and monetize utility losses caused by floods in 17 OECD countries between 1973 and 2004. Using combined cross-section and time-series data, we find a negative impact of floods on life satisfaction that is size...

This paper analyzes the marginal willingness to pay for changes in noise levels related to changes in the volume of flight movements at a city airport in Stockholm, Sweden, by using a choice experiment. When estimating marginal willingness to pay for different times of the day and days of the week, we find that these vary with the temporal dimensions: mornings and evenings have higher marginal ...

We analyze price adjustments in the housing market after an exogenous shock. Exploring continuous-time records of prices around a major European airport (ZRH, Switzerland), and an unexpected change in flight regulations induced by the neighboring country Germany, we find that apartment rents take about two years to stabilize to a new equilibrium value. After this period we find a constant marku...