Download or read book Three Essays on the Economics of Land Use and Water Quality written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on the Economics of Water Pollution Control written by Jiameng Zheng and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water pollution poses important challenges worldwide. In developed countries, most of the challenges from water pollution have to do with recreational and amenity use of water, as well as the negative impact on ecosystems. For instance, in the United States, dead zones caused by nutrient pollution occur annually in many major coastal waters, including Tampa Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and coastal North Carolina, causing large welfare effects in these regions. In developed countries like the United States, the aging drinking water infrastructure, such as the presence of lead pipes, is also a threat to human health. In developing countries, water pollution has a pronounced impact on human health given that safe drinking water is limited in many areas. Economic analysis plays a critical role in the making of environmental policy. In designing and assessing a water pollution control policy, it is important to understand the costs and benefits of such policies and be able to empirically evaluate their effectiveness. However, there are still important challenges in understanding the costs and benefits of water pollution control policies. Water quality improvement is a non-market good, so no direct price signal is available for valuing it. To overcome this problem, economists have developed several non-market valuation techniques, such as hedonic property models and recreation demand models. Each valuation method only captures a piece of the price consumers are willing to pay to improve water quality. This dissertation comprises three papers that answer some critical questions on the economic analysis of water pollution policies. In the first paper, I estimate the marginal willingness-to-pay of homeowners for water quality improvement in Florida,using a two-stage model that combines the recreational value and amenity value of both local and regional water quality improvement. This paper, which focuses on nutrient pollution problems related to the dead zones discussed earlier, generates a more comprehensive estimate of the benefits of water pollution reduction than that used in prior work. In the second paper, I estimate an important cost of water pollution by investigating the short-run and long-run educational impacts of lead pollution in drinking water. Using data from Texas, I find that drinking water lead exposure at birth has a significant negative impact on both 3rd-grade standardized test scores and the high school graduation rate. While many prior papers in environmental economics quantify short-run and long-run human capital costs of air pollution, this paper is one of only a few to do so for an important water pollution problem. Switching to the third paper, I examine the existing literature on the policy instruments that can be used to reduce water pollution. With a focus on developing countries, I describe the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of various water pollution control policies, identify the challenges for implementing and assessing such policies, and provide recommendations for future research

Download or read book Essays on the Economics of Land Use and Water Quality written by Jordan F. Suter and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first essay proposes a mechanism for addressing ambient pollution through a background threat of regulation which induces nonpoint source polluters to voluntarily reduce emissions. Specifically, the severity of the threatened tax policy is endogenous to voluntary stage outcomes. Beyond showing the mechanism's theoretical properties, the essay highlights a set of economics experiments in which participants are faced with a voluntary-threat policy.

Download or read book Three Essays on the Economics of Water Quality in the United States written by David Andrew Keiser and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Land Use Economics written by Daniel Morgan Miles and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays in Water and Climate Economics written by Nicholas Anthony Potter and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation includes three chapters on the economics of climate, water resources, agricultural production, and conflict. Chapter one is an introduction. In chapter two I provide an analysis of the impact of exposure to temperature on returns to irrigated and nonirrigated cropland. Chapter three is a theoretical approach to understand the economic implications of the forfeiture of water rights for nonuse. Chapter four looks at the relationship between drought, conflict, and governance using a disaggregated spatial analysis.Chapter two is on temperature effects on snowpack-dependent surfacewater irrigated production systems in the western US. Irrigated production in that region is characterized by a diverse mix of high value crops, so producers may have more of an ability to adapt to hotter temperatures. I focus on county rental prices for irrigated and nonirrigated cropland and find that economic returns to cropland begin to decrease starting at about 25℗ʻC for irrigated acres and 20℗ʻC for nonirrigated acres.Chapter three covers the economic history that led to the creation of forfeiture policies for the nonuse of surface water rights in the western US. I develop a theory of water rights under prior appropriations with forfeiture and use it to examine why forfeiture policies were adopted in all western states that allocate water via prior appropriation. Forfeiture reduced risk to junior water rights holders and limited speculative water claims, but did so at the cost of increased transaction costs when trading water rights. While these were small when remaining water resources were available to be claimed, they are significantly more costly when all water in a basin has been allocated.In chapter four I combine a spatiotemporal grid of drought and geolocated conflict with several measures of governance characteristics to examine how governance mediates the relationship between drought and conflict. I find little evidence of a relationship between drought and conflict in Africa and Latin and South America. In countries that are more democratic or in which doing business is easier, an increase in drought reduces the likelihood of riot incidence. Other governance measures have no discernible effect.

Download or read book Essays on the Economics of Land Use and Water written by Jordan Frederick Suter and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Land Use Regulation written by Ivan Hascic and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three papers on land use economics and regulation. The first paper focuses on the environmental impacts of land use and their implications for the design on water quality trading policies. The second and third papers address local land use regulations and their impact on land values and land use patterns. The first paper provides a national-scale, watershed-level assessment of land use impacts on water quality and aquatic ecosystems in the United States. The results suggest that the level of conventional water pollution in a watershed is significantly affected by the amount of land allocated to intensive agriculture and urban development, while the level of toxic water pollution is significantly affected by the amount of land allocated to transportation and mining. Implications of the results for the design and implementation of water quality trading policies are discussed. The second paper develops an empirical framework to conduct an exploratory analysis of effects of land use regulations on land values and land use patterns in a GIS-based landscape near Eugene, Oregon. All the land use regulations considered in this study, including exclusive farm use zoning, forest zoning, urban growth boundary designation, residential density zoning, commercial zoning, and industrial zoning, are found to affect land value and use both inside and outside of the designated zones. While there are many issues this framework does not address, preliminary results indicate that regulations (except commercial zoning) tend to increase the value of land outside the designated zones, but reduce the value of land inside the designated zones. The framework is applied to measure the reduction in value due to regulations vs. the value of individual exemptions at the parcel level to illuminate the controversy surrounding Oregon's Measure 37. The reductions in value due to regulations are found to be considerably smaller than the values of individual exemptions for almost all regulations contested in the Measure 37 claims. The third paper evaluates the efficiency of the current system of land use regulation, analyzes the possible changes to the regulatory structure, and studies the role of spatial and temporal interaction among neighboring land uses.

Download or read book The Economics of Land Use written by Ian W. Hardie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Economics of Land Use brings together the most significant journal essays in key areas of contemporary agricultural, food and resource economics and land use policy. The editors provide a state-of-the-art overview of the topic and access to the economic literature that has shaped contemporary perspectives on land use analysis and policy.

Download or read book Three Essays on the Economics of Water Quality and Availability written by Saman Olfati and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on the Economics of Water Rights written by Karin Audrey Donhowe and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finally, in the third chapter I explore differences in Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) water management across its projects. BOR delivers water to farmers in Western states based on long-term contracts with irrigation districts that specify how much land can be irrigated, the quantity of water allotted per acre, and terms of payment. There is variation across Reclamation projects in terms of rights ownership, water allocation, and the ability to transfer water. These areas of institutional variation affect the security of farmers' claims to water, and security of rights in turn affects investment decisions, crop choice, and the value of water rights. This paper documents water management across five of the largest BOR irrigation projects and evaluates the implications of the variation.

Download or read book Essays on Environmental and Resource Economics written by Dilek Uz and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation, I present three essays that empirically study water and energy economics issues in California. The objective of the first chapter is to investigate whether and to what extent farmers' crop choice decision is affected by the irrigation water salinity. Using a highly granular land use data and random coefficients logit method, the effect of irrigation water salinity on crop choice is studied in the context of Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta-- California's major water source and home to prime agricultural farmlands. The results show that though the effect of salinity was statistically significant during the past decade, highest and most significant coefficients were those of crop class indicators and weather. This finding suggests that it is essential to reach out to the farmer community to ensure that they are fully capable of coping with expected salinity increases in medium to long run. Additionally, there is evidence for heterogeneity in farmers' response to salinity even though the area studied is relatively small. Ignoring the heterogeneity can result in misleading coefficient estimates especially for those researchers who wish to study farmer behavior in larger regions. Finally, revenue losses are simulated under baseline salinity and potential future salinity scenarios due to building a water conveying facility around the Delta, which suggests an expected revenue loss of about 19%. In the second chapter, together with Steven Buck, I question the wisdom of selecting a forecast model based on a within-sample goodness-of-fit criterion in the context of commercial and industrial (C&I) water demand in the Southern California. Initially, a set of about 350 thousand regression models are estimated using retailer level panel data featuring water consumption, price, employment, weather variables, and GDP. Out-of-sample forecasting performances of those models that rank within the top 1 \% based on various in and out-of-sample goodness-of-fit criteria were compared. We found that the models that provide the best in-sample fit are not necessarily the most favorable ones when it comes to forecasting water demand. The results indicate that on average, these models have a significantly higher absolute forecast error and a larger gap between the highest and lowest forecasts that they generate compared to the models that rank high based on out-of-sample fit criteria we defined. Finally, the third chpater investigates the effect of the 2000 California energy crisis on the take up of an engineering audit program funded by the Department of Energy, aiming operational improvements in various domains, including energy efficiency, at small and medium sized firms. Using a detailed data set containing information on both firm characteristics and the specifics of the recommendations made, a linear probability model is estimated using difference-in-difference strategy. In order to keep the treatment and the control groups as comparable as possible to ensure credible identification, the firms that applied to be audited and made the take up decision before the crisis are compared to those that applied right before the crisis and had to decide after the crisis started. The results show that the 2000 California energy crisis was associated with a 16% increase in the take up of the IAC energy efficiency recommendations. The coefficient estimate is statistically significant and robust to different model specifications.

Download or read book Development of a Forecasting Model to Predict the Downturn and Upturn of a Real Estate Market in the Inland Empire written by Thomas F. Flynn and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 2011-04 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amidst the dramatic real estate fluctuations in the first decade of the twenty-first century, this study recognized that there is a necessity to create a real estate prediction model for future real estate ventures and prevention of losses such as the mortgage meltdown and housing bust. This real estate prediction model study sought to reinstall the integrity into the American building and development industry, which was tarnished by the sudden emergence of various publications offering get-rich-quick schemes. In the fast-paced and competitive world of lending and real estate development, it is becoming more complex to combine current and evolving factors into a profitable business model. This prediction model correlated past real estate cycle pinpoints to economical driving forces in order to create an ongoing formula. The study used a descriptive, secondary interpretation of raw data already available. Quarterly data was taken from the study's seven independent variables over a 24-year span from 1985 to 2009 to examine the correlation over two real estate cycles. Public information from 97 quarters (1985-2009) was also gathered on seven topics: consumer confidence, loan origination volume, construction employment statistics, migration, GDP, inflation, and interest rates. The Null hypothesis underwent a test of variance at a .05 level of significance. Multiple regression analysis uncovered that four of seven variables have correlated and could predict movement in real estate cycle evidence from previous data, based in the Inland Empire. GDP, interest rates, loan origination volume, and inflation were the four economical driving variables that completed the Inland Empire's real estate prediction model and global test. Findings from this study certify that there is correlation between economical driving factors and the real estate cycle. These correlations illustrate patterns and trends, which can become a prediction model using statistics. By interpreting and examining the data, this study believes that the prediction model is best utilized through pinpointing an exact numerical location by running calculations through the established global equation, and recommends further research and regular update of quarterly trends and movements in the real estate cycle and specific variables in the formula.

Download or read book Selected Water Resources Abstracts written by and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on the Economics of Water written by Nicholas William Hagerty and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis studies three questions in the economics of water resource management. Chapter 1 estimates the economic gains available from greater use of large-scale water markets in California. I develop a revealed-preference empirical approach that exploits observed choices in the existing water market, and I apply it to comprehensive new data on California’s water economy. This approach overcomes the challenge posed by transaction costs, which insert an unobservable wedge between observed prices and marginal valuations. First, I directly estimate transaction costs and use them to recover equilibrium marginal valuations. Then, I use supply shocks to estimate price elasticities of demand, which govern how marginal valuations vary with quantity. I find even a relatively modest market scenario would create additional benefits of $480 million per year, which can be weighed against both the benefits of existing market restrictions and the setup costs of larger-scale markets. Chapter 2 estimates the possible costs of industrial water pollution to agriculture in India, focusing on 63 industrial sites identified by the central government as “severely polluted.” I exploit the spatial discontinuity in pollution concentrations that these sites generate along a river. First, I show that these sites do in fact coincide with a large, discontinuous rise in pollutant concentrations in the nearest river. Then, I find some evidence that agricultural revenues may be substantially lower in districts immediately downstream of polluting sites, relative to districts immediately upstream of the same site in the same year. These results suggest that damages to agriculture could represent a major cost of water pollution. Chapter 3, co-authored with Ariel Zucker, presents an experimental protocol for a project that pays smallholder farmers in India to reduce their consumption of groundwater. This project will test the effectiveness of payments for voluntary conservation – a policy instrument that may be able to sidestep regulatory constraints common in developing countries. It will also measure the price response of demand for groundwater in irrigated agriculture, a key input to many possible reforms. Evidence from a pilot suggests that the program may have reduced groundwater pumping by a large amount, though confidence intervals are wide.

Download or read book Essays on the Economics of Land Use Regulation written by Jiayin Lai and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three papers on land use economics and regulation. The first paper reviews numerous past literatures on how land-use regulation, agricultural subsidies, and use-value assessment method affect land values. The second paper uses a theoretical model to analyze how imposing minimum-lot-size zoning and different designs of minimum-lot-size zoning policies affects land value. The third papers use land data from Oregon to investigate the price effect of minimum-lot-size zoning and potential impact of Measure 37 and 49. The first essay reviews an extensive collection of literature from most major applied economics journals in recent years. These past studies attempted to investigate the impacts of various land use policies, including minimum-lot-size zoning, open space protection, wetland conservation, etc. These studies demonstrate how land use policies might affect residents' land consumption, social welfare, land markets, local government finance, and urban development patterns. Various econometric and mathematical models have been used to overcome problems related to modeling and data, such as spatial correlation. The objective of the second essay is to investigate the effect of the minimum-lot-size zoning on land values versus the value of individual exemptions from the regulations. The study first assumes all residents live in a monocentric city and have the same income constraints, and then assumes that there are two income groups living in the monocentric city. Minimum-lot-size zoning is applied to the periphery of the city. As stated in the study by Jaeger and Plantinga (special report, June 2007), distinguishing between two concepts - the change in property value due to regulation and the value to a landowner of an individual exemption to a regulation - is important to estimate the potential impact of Measure 37 and 49. Therefore, this study will explore both cases: 1) the removal of minimum-lot-size zoning from all parcels, and 2) having a single parcel exempted from zoning. Both open-city and closed-city scenarios will be considered. The comparative statics will show how the zoning policy influences urban land values. In addition, a simulation will help to demonstrate the impact of policy changes. The third essay uses the two-stage hedonic model to estimate the demand for lot size. The first stage estimation allows us to estimate the marginal impact of zoning policies, while the second stage estimation is used to investigate how land values are affected by the non-marginal change in zoning policies, such as the elimination of zoning or changes related to Measure 37. In the first stage estimation, the zoning policy is assumed to have two conflicting impacts on the land value; the regulation reduces development opportunities while it also may provide more environmental benefits. In the empirical model, four Oregon counties are considered as separate land markets, and the distribution of consumers' tastes are assumed to be the same across the counties. This provides a tool for solving the identification problem in the second stage estimation.

Download or read book Three Essays on Environmental and Natural Resource Economics written by Rong Zhou and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: