Light the way
Behavioral Responses to Daylight Savings Time
Alison Sexton & Timothy Beatty
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Daylight Savings Time (DST) is promoted as a tool to conserve energy. However, ex post reduced form estimates of the effects of DST find no evidence of energy savings and find some evidence of a small increase in energy use. This paper investigates this disconnect using detailed individual time use data to look at the behavioral effects of DST. We study how individuals change their time use in response to the abrupt shift in daylight associated with DST. We leverage two natural experiments to identify the effect of DST on behavior. First, we study periods around the annual shift in daylight induced by moving into and out of DST. Second, we compare activities by time interval before and after the change in DST start dates that occurred in 2007. We find cautious evidence that individuals are shifting potentially energy intensive activities earlier in the day, which is consistent with earlier findings of increased energy usage.
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Particulate Pollution and the Productivity of Pear Packers
Tom Chang et al.
NBER Working Paper, February 2014
Abstract:
We study the effect of outdoor air pollution on the productivity of indoor workers at a pear-packing factory. We focus on fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a harmful pollutant that easily penetrates indoor settings. We find that an increase in PM2.5 outdoors leads to a statistically and economically significant decrease in packing speeds inside the factory, with effects arising at levels well below current air quality standards. In contrast, we find little effect of PM2.5 on hours worked or the decision to work, and little effect of pollutants that do not travel indoors, such as ozone. This effect of outdoor pollution on the productivity of indoor workers suggests a thus far overlooked consequence of pollution. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that nationwide reductions in PM2.5 from 1999 to 2008 generated $19.5 billion in labor cost savings, which is roughly one-third of the total welfare benefits associated with this change.
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The Federalism of Fracking: How the Locus of Policy-Making Authority Affects Civic Engagement
Gwen Arnold & Robert Holahan
Publius, Spring 2014, Pages 344-368
Abstract:
In 1961, V. Ostrom, Tiebout, and Warren (OTW) argued that small political jurisdictions foster more civic engagement than large jurisdictions. Empirical tests of this claim have produced mixed results. Drawing on E. Ostrom's theorizing, we contend that these mixed findings may result from scholars ignoring differences in the policy-making capacity of seemingly comparable jurisdictions. We nuance OTW's hypothesis by examining how the size of the jurisdiction with authority to shape policy affects civic engagement surrounding hydraulic fracturing in New York and Pennsylvania. Empirical analysis supports the nuanced OTW hypothesis: Citizens in New York, where meaningful fracking policy-making authority rests with small local jurisdictions, evidence more civic engagement than citizens in Pennsylvania, where the locus for fracking policy-making authority is a large, commonwealth-wide jurisdiction.
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Environmental Sustainability and National Personality
Jacob Hirsh
Journal of Environmental Psychology, June 2014, Pages 233-240
Abstract:
Previous research has linked higher levels of the personality traits Agreeableness and Openness with greater concern about environmental issues. While these traits are important predictors of environmental attitudes among individuals, a growing literature has begun examining the broader consequences of population differences in personality characteristics. The present study examines whether nationally-aggregated personality traits can be significant predictors of a country's environmental sustainability. National personality scores were derived from an existing database of 12,156 respondents across 51 countries and examined in relation to each country's scores on the Environmental Performance Index, a benchmark of the sustainability of a country's environmental policies. Just as Agreeableness and Openness predict environmental concern at the individual level, countries with higher population levels of Agreeableness and Openness had significantly better performance on the sustainability index. These results remained when controlling for national differences in wealth, education, and population size and were unique to these two traits.
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Focusing Events and Public Opinion: Evidence from the Deepwater Horizon Disaster
Bradford Bishop
Political Behavior, March 2014, Pages 1-22
Abstract:
Scholarly research has found a weak and inconsistent role for self-interest in public opinion, and mixed evidence for a relationship between local pollution risks and support for environmental protection. In this study, I argue that focusing events can induce self-interested responses from people living in communities whose economies are implicated by the event. I leverage a unique 12-wave panel survey administered between 2008 and 2010 to analyze public opinion toward offshore oil drilling before and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I find that residence in counties highly dependent upon the offshore drilling industry was predictive of pro-drilling attitudes following the spill, though not prior to the spill. In addition, there is no significant evidence that residence in a county afflicted by the spill influenced opinion. This study concludes that local support for drilling often arises only after focusing events make the issue salient.
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Luciana Juvenal & Ivan Petrella
Journal of Applied Econometrics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The run-up in oil prices since 2004 coincided with growing investment in commodity markets and increased price co-movement among different commodities. We assess whether speculation in the oil market played a role in driving this salient empirical pattern. We identify oil shocks from a large dataset using a dynamic factor model. This method is motivated by the fact that a small-scale vector autoregression is not informationally sufficient to identify the shocks. The main results are as follows. (i) While global demand shocks account for the largest share of oil price fluctuations, speculative shocks are the second most important driver. (ii) The increase in oil prices over the last decade is mainly driven by the strength of global demand. However, speculation played a significant role in the oil price increase between 2004 and 2008 and its subsequent collapse. (iii) The co-movement between oil prices and the prices of other commodities is mainly explained by global demand shocks. Our results support the view that the recent oil price increase is mainly driven by the strength of global demand but that the financialization process of commodity markets also played a role.
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How Frames Can Undermine Support for Scientific Adaptations: Politicization and the Status-Quo Bias
Toby Bolsen, James Druckman & Fay Lomax Cook
Public Opinion Quarterly, Spring 2014, Pages 1-26
Abstract:
The politicization of science is a phenomenon that has sparked a great deal of attention in recent years. Nonetheless, few studies directly explore how frames that highlight politicization affect public support for scientific adaptations. We study how frames that highlight politicization affect support for using nuclear power, and test our hypotheses with two experiments. We find, in one study, that politicizing science reduces support for nuclear power and renders arguments about the environmental benefits of nuclear energy invalid, regardless of whether there is a reference to consensus scientific evidence. We find, in a second study, that reference to the potential health risks associated with using nuclear power also decreases support in the presence of additional frames that highlight either science's progress or its politicization. In the end, our findings suggest that a status-quo bias prevails that, under some circumstances, can serve as a significant impediment to generating public support for scientific innovations.
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Stories that Count: Influence of News Narratives on Issue Attitudes
Fuyuan Shen, Lee Ahern & Michelle Baker
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, March 2014, Pages 98-117
Abstract:
This paper examines the impact of using narratives to frame a political issue on individuals' attitudes. In an experiment, we asked participants to read either narrative or informational news articles that emphasized the potential economic benefits or environmental consequences associated with shale gas drilling. Results indicated both news formats (narrative vs. informational) and frames (environmental vs. economic) had significant immediate effects on issue attitudes and other responses; narrative environmental news had a significantly greater impact than informational environmental news. Cognitive responses and empathy were significant partial mediators of narrative impact. Environmental narratives also had a more significant impact on individuals' delayed issue attitudes.
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Kouji Harada et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 March 2014, Pages E914-E923
Abstract:
Radiation dose rates were evaluated in three areas neighboring a restricted area within a 20- to 50-km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in August-September 2012 and projected to 2022 and 2062. Study participants wore personal dosimeters measuring external dose equivalents, almost entirely from deposited radionuclides (groundshine). External dose rate equivalents owing to the accident averaged 1.03, 2.75, and 1.66 mSv/y in the village of Kawauchi, the Tamano area of Soma, and the Haramachi area of Minamisoma, respectively. Internal dose rates estimated from dietary intake of radiocesium averaged 0.0058, 0.019, and 0.0088 mSv/y in Kawauchi, Tamano, and Haramachi, respectively. Dose rates from inhalation of resuspended radiocesium were lower than 0.001 mSv/y. In 2012, the average annual doses from radiocesium were close to the average background radiation exposure (2 mSv/y) in Japan. Accounting only for the physical decay of radiocesium, mean annual dose rates in 2022 were estimated as 0.31, 0.87, and 0.53 mSv/y in Kawauchi, Tamano, and Haramachi, respectively. The simple and conservative estimates are comparable with variations in the background dose, and unlikely to exceed the ordinary permissible dose rate (1 mSv/y) for the majority of the Fukushima population. Health risk assessment indicates that post-2012 doses will increase lifetime solid cancer, leukemia, and breast cancer incidences by 1.06%, 0.03% and 0.28% respectively, in Tamano. This assessment was derived from short-term observation with uncertainties and did not evaluate the first-year dose and radioiodine exposure. Nevertheless, this estimate provides perspective on the long-term radiation exposure levels in the three regions.
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Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development
Atif Ansar et al.
Energy Policy, June 2014, Pages 43-56
Abstract:
A brisk building boom of hydropower mega-dams is underway from China to Brazil. Whether benefits of new dams will outweigh costs remains unresolved despite contentious debates. We investigate this question with the "outside view" or "reference class forecasting" based on literature on decision-making under uncertainty in psychology. We find overwhelming evidence that budgets are systematically biased below actual costs of large hydropower dams - excluding inflation, substantial debt servicing, environmental, and social costs. Using the largest and most reliable reference data of its kind and multilevel statistical techniques applied to large dams for the first time, we were successful in fitting parsimonious models to predict cost and schedule overruns. The outside view suggests that in most countries large hydropower dams will be too costly in absolute terms and take too long to build to deliver a positive risk-adjusted return unless suitable risk management measures outlined in this paper can be affordably provided. Policymakers, particularly in developing countries, are advised to prefer agile energy alternatives that can be built over shorter time horizons to energy megaprojects.
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Energy Policy with Externalities and Internalities
Hunt Allcott, Sendhil Mullainathan & Dmitry Taubinsky
Journal of Public Economics, April 2014, Pages 72-88
Abstract:
We analyze optimal policy when consumers of energy-using durables undervalue energy costs relative to their private optima. First, there is an Internality Dividend from Externality Taxes: aside from reducing externalities, they also offset distortions from underinvestment in energy efficiency. Discrete choice simulations of the auto market suggest that the Internality Dividend could more than double the social welfare gains from a carbon tax at marginal damages. Second, we develop the Internality Targeting Principle: the optimal combination of multiple instruments depends on the average internality of the consumers marginal to each instrument. Because consumers who undervalue energy costs are mechanically less responsive to energy taxes, the optimal policy will tend to involve an energy tax below marginal damages coupled with a larger subsidy for energy efficient products. Third, although the exact optimal policy depends on joint distributions of unobservables which would be difficult to estimate, we develop formulas to closely approximate optimal policy and welfare effects based on reduced form "sufficient statistics" that can be estimated using field experiments or quasi-experimental variation in product prices and energy costs.
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Katrina Jessoe, David Rapson & Jeremy Smith
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine a choice setting in which residential electricity consumers may respond to non-financial incentives in addition to prices. Using data from a natural field experiment that exposed some households to a change in their electricity rates, we find that households reduced electricity usage in response to a contemporaneous decrease in electricity prices. This provides clear evidence that other factors - potentially encompassing non-monetary and dynamic considerations - can influence consumer choice, and even dominate the static price response in some cases. A comprehensive understanding of household behavior in energy markets is essential for the effective implementation of market-based energy and environmental policies. The documentation of our result and others like it is a necessary step in achieving such an understanding.
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Distribution of income and toxic emissions in Maine, United States: Inequality in two dimensions
Rachel Bouvier
Ecological Economics, June 2014, Pages 39-47
Abstract:
Ecological distribution refers to inequalities in the use of environmental sinks and sources. This article explores one such dimension of ecological distribution - that of toxic air emissions. Using data from the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators model and the United States Census Bureau, I analyze the distribution of both environmental risk and income at the block-group level in the state of Maine. The state of Maine was chosen for its historical dependence upon natural resources as well as its economic and spatial heterogeneity. Results clearly indicate that the toxic air emissions are distributed much more unequally than is income, and that those inequalities are reinforcing. While not in itself an indication of environmental injustice, such analyses may help us to rethink the assumption that there is a tradeoff between income and pollution.
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Are State Renewable Portfolio Standards Contagious?
Oguzhan Dincer, James Payne & Kristi Simkins
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, April 2014, Pages 325-340
Abstract:
This study examines whether the target levels of a state's renewable portfolio standard (RPS) are influenced by target levels in neighboring states, controlling for state-specific characteristics. Contrary to previous studies, target levels in neighboring states have a positive and statistically significant impact. In addition, the renewable energy potential and transmission capacity within a state, as well as in neighboring states, all have a positive and statistically significant impact. Both a state's unemployment rate and its educational attainment have a positive impact. Furthermore, states with Democratic governors have higher RPS target levels. The results also indicate significant regional variation in RPS target levels.
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An Ethanol Blend Wall Shift is Prone to Increase Petroleum Gasoline Demand
Cheng Qiu, Gregory Colson & Michael Wetzstein
Energy Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a waiver allowing an increase in the fuel-ethanol blend limit (the "blend wall") from 10% (E10) to 15% (E15). Justifications for the waiver are reduced vehicle-fuel prices and less consumption of petroleum gasoline, leading to greater energy security. Empirical investigations of this waiver using Monte Carlo simulations reveal an anomaly where a relaxation of this blend wall elicits a demand response. Under a wide range of elasticities, this demand response can actually increase the consumption of petroleum gasoline and thus lead to greater energy insecurity. The economics supporting this result and associated policy implications are developed and discussed.
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The social symbolism of water-conserving landscaping
Rebecca Neel et al.
Journal of Environmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three studies examined the symbolic and self-presentational meaning of low-water-use residential landscaping in a desert city in the southwestern United States. We hypothesized that owners' water-intensive or water-conserving landscape choices would be seen to convey very different characteristics. Data indicated that these two types of residential landscapes led to substantially different attributions about homeowners and also that potential homeowners could use landscapes to convey an array of characteristics to a social audience. In general, water-intensive landscapes led to more positive attributions than did water-conserving landscapes. The results support the idea that landscaping choice may be guided by self-presentational considerations, and that such considerations might influence the adoption of high- or low-water-use landscapes.
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To shut down or to shift: Multinationals and environmental regulation
Helen Naughton
Ecological Economics, June 2014, Pages 113-117
Abstract:
According to the pollution haven effect mobile capital responds to environmental regulation by moving from countries with high regulation to countries with low regulation. Previous tests of the pollution haven effect focus on host country regulation effect. This study also examines the effect of home country regulation on foreign direct investment (FDI). Using a panel of 28 OECD countries for 1990-2000 to estimate host and home country environmental regulations' effect on FDI, this study finds that host regulation decreases FDI. In contrast, home environmental regulation increases FDI at low levels of home regulation and decreases FDI at high levels of home regulation.
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Global Benefits of Marine Protected Areas
James Rising & Geoffrey Heal
NBER Working Paper, March 2014
Abstract:
Case studies suggest that Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) can be effective tools for fishery management. This study uses global datasets of MPAs and stock assessments to estimate the strength and robustness of their benefits. We apply multiple models, including a treatment-control pairing, a logistic model estimated with fixed-effects, and a regression tree to identify key characteristics. We find that regions with significant MPA designations increased their yearly yield by 17e3 MT/yr while those without experienced a loss of 20e3 MT/yr. On average, a 1% increase in protected area results in an increase in the growth rate of fish populations by about 1%. Considering only IUCN classified protected areas, and only marine portions of MPAs, growth rates increase 2% per percent area protected. MPA size is a key parameter which determines their per-area effectiveness. Using these results, we produce an estimate of the economic benefits of protected areas, relative to their costs. About 60% of country regions currently have insufficient protected areas to generate economic benefits, where the average break-even point for economic benefits of MPAs is at 8.5% of marine area.