Spewing
Assimilating and Differentiating: The Curvilinear Effect of Social Class on Green Consumption
Li Yan, Hean Tat Keh & Jiemiao Chen
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Building on optimal distinctiveness theory, this research examines the effects of social class on green consumption. Across six studies, we find a curvilinear effect of social class on green consumption, with the middle class having greater propensity for green consumption compared to the lower and upper classes. This effect can be explained by tension between need for assimilation (NFA) and need for differentiation (NFD) that varies among the three social classes in establishing their optimally distinctive identities. The lower class has a dominant NFA, the upper class has a dominant NFD, while the middle class has dual motivation for assimilation and differentiation. Concomitantly, green consumption has the dual function of assimilation and differentiation. The middle class perceives green consumption as simultaneously assimilating and differentiating, which satisfies their dual motivation and enhances their propensity for green consumption. By contrast, the lower class perceives the differentiation function of green consumption as contradicting their dominant NFA, and the upper class perceives the assimilation function as contradicting their dominant NFD, which lower both their propensities for green consumption. Furthermore, these effects are moderated by consumers’ power distance belief. These novel findings have significant theoretical and practical implications on building a more sustainable society.
Caring for the Commons: Using Psychological Ownership to Enhance Stewardship Behavior for Public Goods
Joann Peck et al.
Journal of Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
How can consumers be encouraged to take better care of public goods? Across four studies, including two experiments in the field and three documenting actual behaviors, the authors demonstrate that increasing consumers’ individual psychological ownership facilitates stewardship of public goods. This effect occurs because feelings of ownership increase consumers’ perceived responsibility, which then leads to active behavior to care for the good. Evidence from a variety of contexts, including a public lake with kayakers, a state park with skiers, and a public walking path, suggests that increasing psychological ownership enhances both effortful stewardship, such as picking up trash from a lake, and financial stewardship, such as donating money. This work further demonstrates that the relationship between psychological ownership and resulting stewardship behavior is attenuated when there are cues, such as an attendance sign, which diffuse responsibility among many people. This work offers implications for consumers, practitioners, and policy makers with simple interventions that can encourage consumers to be better stewards of public goods.
Taxed to death? Freight truck collision externalities and diesel taxes
Cody Nehiba
Regional Science and Urban Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper decomposes the external accident costs of freight trucking into two components—truck miles traveled and truck weight. The effects of miles traveled and weight on accidents are then applied to an analysis of diesel fuel taxes, which reduce truck miles traveled and increase truck weight. Exploiting a unique data set of 3.5 billion truck-level observations, I find that both measures of trucking activity increase the quantity of collisions, and truck-weight increases skew the collision distribution toward fatal outcomes. Heavier trucks do not alter the truck-only collision severity distribution, suggesting truckers do not experience truck-weight internalities. The increase in fatal collisions caused by levying a diesel tax that prices carbon emissions offsets the gains from reductions in pollution, congestion, and total collisions. The $0.37 per gallon diesel tax increase exacerbates the trucking accident externality to such an extent that it increases the external costs of trucking by $55.7 billion/year while also creating deadweight loss in the trucking industry.
Persistence or Partisanship: Exploring the Relationship between Presidential Administrations and Criminal Enforcement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1983‐2019
Joshua Ozymy, Bryan Menard & Melissa Jarrell
Public Administration Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Conventional analysis suggests that enforcement actions meted out by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency vary greatly across Democratic and Republican presidential administrations. Yet research fails to look beyond civil actions to explore how the agency engages in the criminal enforcement of environmental crimes over time or whether and how those outcomes change across partisan administrations. We explore these questions by using content analysis to build a comprehensive dataset of 2,588 criminal enforcement prosecutions, 1983‐2019. Results do not suggest outcomes under Democratic presidents are always substantially more punitive or under Republicans significantly reduced. Outcomes over time better reflect the growing sophistication and institutionalization of the enforcement process, declining budgetary realities, and the agency's organizational commitment to deter serious environmental crimes.
Prescribed Burns, Smoke Exposure, and Infant Health
Benjamin Jones & Robert Berrens
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prescribed burning is used for reducing future wildfire risk; however, it creates smoke, which can affect human health. Using newly available high‐frequency daily data (2015–2017) on PM2.5 specifically attributed to smoke from prescribed burns in Georgia, USA, this analysis investigates infant health externalities connected to these burns. Cumulatively, over an average pregnancy, smoke from prescribed burns is associated with a 1.02 percentage point increase in instances of low birth weight and prematurity, each. For every $1 spent on prescribed burning, $0.43–$2.46 in state‐wide low birth weight and prematurity hospitalization costs are created. Various robustness and specification checks are performed.
What are the Long-Term Effects of Prenatal Air Pollution Exposure? Evidence from the BHPS
Patrick Gourley
Eastern Economic Journal, October 2020, Pages 603–635
Abstract:
The detrimental impacts of air pollution on human health are significant. Pollution increases mortality in the elderly and reduces worker productivity. While a consensus is beginning to emerge on the contemporaneous effects of air pollution, the long-term effects are still largely unknown. By combining restricted data from a comprehensive national survey with historical pollution data, I plausibly isolate the impact of prenatal particulate matter exposure on adult outcomes. I find that those with higher levels of prenatal exposure during the second trimester of gestation are more likely to be disabled, earn lower wages, and have worse health.
Natural gas development, flaring practices and paediatric asthma hospitalizations in Texas
Mary Willis et al.
International Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Methods: We leveraged a database of Texas inpatient hospitalizations between 2000 and 2010 at the zip code level by quarter to examine associations between NGD and paediatric asthma hospitalizations, where our primary outcome is 0 vs ≥1 hospitalization. We used quarterly production reports to assess additional drilling-specific exposures at the zip code-level including drilling type, production and gas flaring. We developed logistic regression models to assess paediatric asthma hospitalizations by zip code-quarter-year observations, thus capturing spatiotemporal exposure patterns.
Results: We observed increased odds of ≥1 paediatric asthma hospitalization in a zip code per quarter associated with increasing tertiles of NGD exposure and show that spatiotemporal variation impacts results. Conventional drilling, compared with no drilling, is associated with odds ratios up to 1.23 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.13, 1.34], whereas unconventional drilling is associated with odds ratios up to 1.59 (95% CI: 1.46, 1.73). Increasing production volumes are associated with increased paediatric asthma hospitalizations in an exposure–response relationship, whereas associations with flaring volumes are inconsistent.
Residential Building Codes Do Save Energy: Evidence from Hourly Smart-Meter Data
Kevin Novan, Aaron Smith & Tianxia Zhou
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In 1978, California adopted building codes designed to reduce the energy used for temperature control. Using a rich dataset of hourly electricity consumption for 158,112 houses in Sacramento, we estimate that the average house built just after 1978 uses 8% to 13% less electricity for cooling than a similar house built just before 1978. Comparing the estimated savings to the policy's projected cost, our results suggest the policy passes a cost-benefit test. In settings where market failures prevent energy costs from being completely passed through to home prices, building codes can serve as a cost-effective tool for improving energy efficiency.
The Impact on the Ozone Layer of a Potential Fleet of Civil Hypersonic Aircraft
Douglas Kinnison et al.
Earth's Future, forthcoming
Abstract:
The aeronautical community is currently researching technology that might lead to commercial hypersonic aircraft that would cruise at Mach 5 – 8 in the middle or upper stratosphere, and would transfer passengers from London to New York or from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just a couple of hours. Depending on the engine technology to be adopted, these aircraft will potentially release substantial amounts of water vapor and nitrogen oxides around 30‐40 km altitude. We show here that the operation of a large fleet of such aircraft could potentially deplete considerable amounts of ozone in the stratosphere, which would lead to a substantial increase in biologically damaging ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth’s surface. The calculations are based on a specific emission scenario, which carries large uncertainties, but can easily be scaled to account for the type of aircraft engine to be eventually adopted, improved technology to be expected and the size and operation conditions of the future aircraft fleet.
Long-term collapse in fruit availability threatens Central African forest megafauna
Emma Bush et al.
Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Afrotropical forests host many of the world’s remaining megafauna, but even here they are confined to areas where direct human influences are low. We use a rare long-term dataset of tree reproduction and a photographic database of forest elephants to assess food availability and body condition of an emblematic megafauna species at Lopé National Park, Gabon. We show an 81% decline in fruiting over a 32-year period (1986-2018) and an 11% decline in body condition of fruit-dependent forest elephants from 2008-2018. Fruit famine in one of the last strongholds for African forest elephants should raise concern for the ability of this species and other fruit-dependent megafauna to persist in the long-term, with consequences for broader ecosystem and biosphere functioning.