The grass is greener
Affirming belief in scientific progress reduces environmentally friendly behavior
Marijn Meijers & Bastiaan Rutjens
European Journal of Social Psychology, August 2014, Pages 487–495
Abstract:
Many people are reluctant to behave in environmentally friendly ways. One possible explanation might be that the motivation to behave in environmentally friendly ways is undermined by the way scientific progress is overstated in the popular media. Four experiments show that portraying science as rapidly progressing — and thus enabling society to control problems related to the natural environment and human health in the not-too-distant future — is detrimental to environmentally friendly behaviour because such a frame affirms perceptions of an orderly (vs chaotic) world. This in turn negatively affects the likelihood of engaging in environmentally friendly behaviour. Simultaneously, communication that questions (vs affirms) scientific progress leads to lower perceptions of order and consequential increases in environmentally friendly behaviour. These findings show that when the aim is to promote environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviour, it helps to not overstate scientific progress.
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Free to Choose: Promoting Conservation by Relaxing Outdoor Watering Restrictions
Anita Castledine et al.
NBER Working Paper, July 2014
Abstract:
Many water utilities use outdoor watering restrictions based on assigned weekly watering days to promote conservation and delay costly capacity expansions. We find that such policies can lead to unintended consequences - customers who adhere to the prescribed schedule use more water than those following a more flexible irrigation pattern. For our application to residential watering in a high-desert environment, this "rigidity penalty" is robust to an exogenous policy change that allowed an additional watering day per week. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on leakage effects of regulatory policies. In our case inefficiencies arise as policies limit the extent to which agents can temporally re-allocate actions.
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Sharp increase in central Oklahoma seismicity since 2008 induced by massive wastewater injection
K.M. Keranen et al.
Science, 25 July 2014, Pages 448-451
Abstract:
Unconventional oil and gas production provides a rapidly growing energy source; however, high-production states in the United States, such as Oklahoma, face sharply rising numbers of earthquakes. Subsurface pressure data required to unequivocally link earthquakes to injection are rarely accessible. Here we use seismicity and hydrogeological models to show that fluid migration from high-rate disposal wells in Oklahoma is potentially responsible for the largest swarm. Earthquake hypocenters occur within disposal formations and upper-basement, between 2-5 km depth. The modeled fluid pressure perturbation propagates throughout the same depth range and tracks earthquakes to distances of 35 km, with a triggering threshold of ~0.07 MPa. Although thousands of disposal wells operate aseismically, four of the highest-rate wells are capable of inducing 20% of 2008-2013 central US seismicity.
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Bernadette Sütterlin & Michael Siegrist
Journal of Environmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research provides evidence for people’s susceptibility to the symbolic significance fallacy when judging energy-related behaviors. The fallacy describes people’s tendency to rely on symbolically significant behavioral attributes while neglecting other information. Participants were presented with two energy consumer descriptions. One entailed a positive symbolically significant attribute (e.g., driving a Prius) and a negative symbolically neutral attribute (e.g., covering 28,700 km); for the other one, the reverse was true (e.g., driving an SUV and covering 11,400 km). Thereby, the former actually consumed more energy. As expected, the energy consumer with the positive symbolically significant attribute was considered more energy conscious than the one with the negative symbolically significant attribute. The effect even persisted when providing detailed information on energy consumption, enabling an exact calculation, and asking to directly rate energy consumption. This research points to misperceptions in the estimation of energy consumption that could impede adoption of adequate energy-friendly behavior.
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Antonio Bento et al.
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014, Pages 1-29
Abstract:
In transportation systems with unpriced congestion, allowing single-occupant low-emission vehicles in high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to encourage their adoption exacerbates congestion costs for carpoolers. The resulting welfare effects of the policy are negative, with environmental benefits overwhelmingly dominated by the increased congestion costs. Exploiting the introduction of the Clean Air Vehicle Stickers policy in California with a regression discontinuity design, our results imply a best-case cost of $124 per ton of reductions in greenhouse gases, $606,000 dollars per ton of nitrogen oxides reduction, and $505,000 dollars per ton of hydrocarbon reduction, exceeding those of other options readily available to policymakers.
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Moral Outpouring: Shock and Generosity in the Aftermath of the BP Oil Spill
Justin Farrell
Social Problems, August 2014, Pages 482-506
Abstract:
The 2010 BP oil spill is the largest human-caused disaster in U.S. history. Using nationally representative panel data measured before, during, and after the spill I find that rather than giving time and money to actual relief efforts, Americans responded primarily through dramatic increases in time and money given for environmental causes. This expands current understandings about how and why Americans respond to large-scale catastrophe. I argue that this phenomenon can be made sense of theoretically by focusing on the cultural context of “moral shock” precipitated by historic environmental harm and corporate negligence, both of which were amplified in the wake of the spill by national media. This heightened emotional climate interacted with Americans' empathetic identities, practices and habits, politics, and culture to produce different pathways to philanthropic engagement. Consistent with this argument, the results show that all four of these factors mattered for predicting generous behavior in this case, but did so at different points in time. I close by outlining the substantive and theoretical implications of my argument.
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Wielding the green stick: Criminal enforcement at the EPA under the Bush and Obama administrations
Joshua Ozymy & Melissa Jarrell
Environmental Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The criminal prosecution of environmental offenders by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of the agency’s most politicised yet poorly understood responsibilities. Through content analysis of the Agency’s criminal prosecutions in 2001–2011, we undertook analysis of nearly 1000 cases to understand better whether and how the outcomes of the criminal enforcement division change under presidential administrations. Using a principal-agent framework, our results suggest presidents do matter for enforcement outcomes. Yet, the more interesting conclusion is that these outcomes are not extremely divergent, suggesting that the Agency is able to navigate the often conflicting dictates of various political principals, under similar budgetary constraints, and in step with an Agency culture that values strong enforcement. Moreover, we find that such enforcement efforts are substantively valuable, as many of these cases involve serious and willful violations of law that result in significant harm to humans and the environment.
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Cash for Corollas: When Stimulus Reduces Spending
Mark Hoekstra, Steven Puller & Jeremy West
NBER Working Paper, July 2014
Abstract:
Cash for Clunkers was a 2009 economic stimulus program aimed at increasing new vehicle spending by subsidizing the replacement of older vehicles. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show the increase in sales during the two month program was completely offset during the following seven to nine months, consistent with previous research. However, we also find the program's fuel efficiency restrictions induced households to purchase more fuel efficient but less expensive vehicles, thereby reducing industry revenues by three billion dollars over the entire nine to eleven month period. This highlights the conflict between the stimulus and environmental objectives of the policy.
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Frederica Perera et al.
Journal of Public Health Policy, August 2014, Pages 327–336
Abstract:
Outdoor air pollution, largely from fossil fuel burning, is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States, costing billions of dollars every year in health care and loss of productivity. The developing fetus and young child are especially vulnerable to neurotoxicants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) released to ambient air by combustion of fossil fuel and other organic material. Low-income populations are disproportionately exposed to air pollution. On the basis of the results of a prospective cohort study in a low-income population in New York City (NYC) that found a significant inverse association between child IQ and prenatal exposure to airborne PAH, we estimated the increase in IQ and related lifetime earnings in a low-income urban population as a result of a hypothesized modest reduction of ambient PAH concentrations in NYC of 0.25 ng/m3. For reference, the current estimated annual mean PAH concentration is ~1 ng/m3. Restricting to NYC Medicaid births and using a 5 per cent discount rate, we estimated the gain in lifetime earnings due to IQ increase for a single year cohort to be US$215 million (best estimate). Using much more conservative assumptions, the estimate was $43 million. This analysis suggests that a modest reduction in ambient concentrations of PAH is associated with substantial economic benefits to children.
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Long-term effects of income specialization in oil and gas extraction: The U.S. West, 1980–2011
Julia Haggerty et al.
Energy Economics, September 2014, Pages 186–195
Abstract:
The purpose of the study is to evaluate the relationships between oil and natural gas specialization and socioeconomic well-being during the period 1980 to 2011 in a large sample of counties within the six major oil- and gas-producing states in the interior U.S. West: Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. The effects of participation in the early 1980s oil and gas boom and long-term specialization were considered as possible drivers of socioeconomic outcomes. Generalized estimating equations were used to regress 11 measures of economic growth and quality of life on oil and gas specialization while accounting for various confounding factors including degree of access to markets, initial socioeconomic conditions in 1980, and dependence on other economic sectors. Long-term oil and gas specialization is observed to have negative effects on change in per capita income, crime rate, and education rate. Participation in the early 1980s boom was positively associated with change in per capita income; however the positive effect decreases the longer counties remain specialized in oil and gas. Our findings contribute to a broader public dialogue about the consequences of resource specialization involving oil and natural gas and call into question the assumption that long-term oil and gas development confers economic advantages upon host communities.
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Lead Exposure and Behavior: Effects on Antisocial and Risky Behavior among Children and Adolescents
Jessica Wolpaw Reyes
NBER Working Paper, August 2014
Abstract:
It is well known that exposure to lead has numerous adverse effects on behavior and development. Using data on two cohorts of children from the NLSY, this paper investigates the effect of early childhood lead exposure on behavior problems from childhood through early adulthood. I find large negative consequences of early childhood lead exposure, in the form of an unfolding series of adverse behavioral outcomes: behavior problems as a child, pregnancy and aggression as a teen, and criminal behavior as a young adult. At the levels of lead that were the norm in United States until the late 1980s, estimated elasticities of these behaviors with respect to lead range between 0.1 and 1.0.
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Howard Chang & Hilary Sigman
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, September 2014, Pages 477–504
Abstract:
Economic theory developed in the prior literature indicates that under the joint and several liability imposed by the federal Superfund statute, the government should recover more of its costs of cleaning up contaminated sites than it would under nonjoint liability, and the amount recovered should increase with the number of defendants and with the independence among defendants in trial outcomes. We test these predictions empirically using data on outcomes in federal Superfund cases. Theory also suggests that this increase in the amount recovered may discourage the sale and redevelopment of potentially contaminated sites (or “brownfields”). We find the increase to be substantial, which suggests that this implicit tax on sales may be an important deterrent for parties contemplating brownfields redevelopment.
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The Impact of Trial Runs on the Acceptability of Environmental Taxes: Experimental Evidence
Todd Cherry, Steffen Kallbekken & Stephan Kroll
Resource and Energy Economics, November 2014, Pages 84–95
Abstract:
This paper examines the political difficulty of enacting welfare-enhancing environmental taxes. Using referenda in a market experiment with externalities, we investigate the effect of trial periods on the acceptability of two theoretically equivalent Pigouvian tax schemes. While implementing either tax is in subjects’ material self-interest, we find significant levels of opposition to both schemes, though the level differs considerably. Results show that trial runs can overcome initial tax aversion, which is robust across schemes, but a trial with one scheme does not affect the acceptability of the other. Trial periods also mitigate initial biases in preferences of alternative tax schemes.
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Rachel McDonald, Ben Newell & Thomas Denson
European Journal of Social Psychology, August 2014, Pages 507–513
Abstract:
Two experiments demonstrate that participants' willingness to endorse adopting pro-environmental behaviors is influenced substantially by a decision-framing effect: the inclusion–exclusion discrepancy. Participants were presented with a list of 26 pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., take a shorter shower, buy local produce). In both experiments, participants asked to cross out the behaviors they would not be willing to engage in (exclusion mindset) generated 30% larger consideration sets than those asked to circle behaviors that they would be willing to do (inclusion mindset). Experiment 2 identified qualities of the behaviors that accounted for the differences in the size of consideration sets, namely effort and opportunity. The results suggest the counter-intuitive notion that encouraging people to think about what they would not do for the environment might lead them to do more.
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Nathan Toké, Christopher Boone & Ramón Arrowsmith
Earth's Future, forthcoming
Abstract:
Public perception and regulation of environmental hazards are important factors in the development and configuration of cities. Throughout California, probabilistic seismic hazard mapping and geologic investigations of active faults have spatially quantified earthquake hazard. In Los Angeles, these analyses have informed earthquake engineering, public awareness, the insurance industry, and the government regulation of developments near faults. Understanding the impact of natural hazards regulation on the social and built geography of cities is vital for informing future science and policy directions. We constructed a relative social vulnerability index classification for Los Angeles to examine the social condition within regions of significant seismic hazard; including areas regulated as Alquist-Priolo (AP) Act earthquake fault zones. Despite hazard disclosures, social vulnerability is lowest within AP regulatory zones and vulnerability increases with distance from them. Because the AP Act requires building setbacks from active faults, newer developments in these zones are bisected by parks. Parcel-level analysis demonstrates that homes adjacent to these fault zone parks are the most valuable in their neighborhoods. At a broad scale, a Landsat-based normalized difference vegetation index shows that greenness near AP zones is greater than the rest of the metropolitan area. In the parks-poor city of Los Angeles, fault zone regulation has contributed to the construction of park space within areas of earthquake hazard, thus transforming zones of natural hazard into amenities, attracting populations of relatively high social status, and demonstrating that the distribution of social vulnerability is sometimes more strongly tied to amenities than hazards.
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Estimating the net implicit price of energy efficient building codes on U.S. households
Bishwa Koirala, Alok Bohara & Robert Berrens
Energy Policy, October 2014, Pages 667–675
Abstract:
Requiring energy efficiency building codes raises housing prices (or the monthly rental equivalent), but theoretically this effect might be fully offset by reductions in household energy expenditures. Whether there is a full compensating differential or how much households are paying implicitly is an empirical question. This study estimates the net implicit price of energy efficient buildings codes, IECC 2003 through IECC 2006, for American households. Using sample data from the American Community Survey 2007, a heteroskedastic seemingly unrelated estimation approach is used to estimate hedonic price (house rent) and energy expenditure models. The value of energy efficiency building codes is capitalized into housing rents, which are estimated to increase by 23.25 percent with the codes. However, the codes provide households a compensating differential of about a 6.47 percent reduction (about $7.71) in monthly energy expenditure. Results indicate that the mean household net implicit price for these codes is about $140.87 per month in 2006 dollars ($163.19 in 2013 dollars). However, this estimated price is shown to vary significantly by region, energy type and the rent gradient.
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Shale Gas Development and Housing Values over a Decade: Evidence from the Barnett Shale
Jeremy Glenn Weber, Wesley Burnett & Irene Xiarchos
U.S. Association for Energy Economics Working Paper, July 2014
Abstract:
Extracting natural gas from shale formations can create local economic benefits such as public revenues but also disamenities such as truck traffic, both of which change over time. We study how shale gas development affected zip code level housing values in Texas’ Barnett Shale, which splits the Dallas-Fort Worth region in half and is the most extensively developed shale formation in the U.S. We find that housing in shale zip codes appreciated more than nonshale zip codes during peak development and less afterwards, with a net positive effect of five to six percentage points from 1997 to 2013. The greater appreciation in part reflects improved local public finances: the value of natural gas rights expanded the local tax base by $82,000 per student, increasing school revenues and expenditures. Within shale zip codes, however, an extra well per square kilometer was associated with a 1.6 percentage point decrease in appreciation over the study period.
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A tale of trade-offs: The impact of macroeconomic factors on environmental concern
Stephen Conroy & Tisha Emerson
Journal of Environmental Management, December 2014, Pages 88–93
Objective: We test whether macroeconomic conditions affect individuals' willingness to pay for environmental quality improvements.
Method: We use a nearly 40-year span (27 periods) of the General Social Survey (1974–2012) to estimate attitudes toward environmental spending while controlling for U.S. macroeconomic conditions and respondent-specific factors such as age, gender, marital status, number of children, residential location, educational attainment, personal financial condition, political party affiliation and ideology. Macroeconomic conditions include one-year lagged controls for the unemployment rate, the rate of economic growth (percentage change in real GDP), and an indicator for whether the U.S. economy was experiencing a recession.
Results: We find that, in general, when economic conditions are unfavorable (i.e., during a recession, or with higher unemployment, or lower GDP growth), respondents are more likely to believe the U.S. is spending too much on “improving and protecting the environment”. Interacting lagged macroeconomic controls with respondent's income, we find that these views are at least partially offset by the respondent's own economic condition (i.e., their own real income).
Conclusion: Our findings are consistent with the notion that environmental quality is a normal, or procyclical good, i.e., that environmental spending should rise when the economy is expanding and fall during economic contractions.